Vikings vs. Broncos

If you watched the Vikings today, you know that the Vikings had a chance to win the game with 9 seconds left but didn't due to a forced fumble that also should have included a penalty for a face mask but wasn't called by the refs.  Vikings lost 34-28 to Detroit, but that is ok.  The game proved to be a decent one, at least the second half anyway when Webb took over for Ponder.  If the game can be somewhat competitive but the Vikings come up just short, that's the way I would prefer it in order to have a high draft pick next year.  The situation was similar last week against the Broncos at the Metrodome.  There was a chance that the Vikings were going to win that game too but in Broncos fashion as they've been doing for the last 5 out of 6 games, they've had a 4th quarter comeback with Tim Tebow (and maybe God) at the helm.  Have I mentioned that I have a crush on Tim Tebow?  Anyway, Vikings lose 35-32.

We didn't tailgate that day as I wasn't feeling the greatest.  We instead went out to breakfast beforehand to one of our favorite breakfast places, Coffee Cup, and then parked at a meter, which saved me $25-$35.  We did not have a fiasco at the gate like the home game before with the new metal detector hand wands.  In fact, there wasn't a line at all.  We were only 10 minutes earlier than what we would normally line up at the gate and we got right in.  Either the security staff was extremely efficient, people showed up hours before the game or they did a terrible job at security.  (Example: I was "wanded" and no one even asked to look in my purse as they normally do.  I asked them if they wanted to look in it and they said the ticket person would do it.  No such person checked my purse.)

Both M and I had new head wear for the game.  The night before, after setting up the tree and having it all complete, M wanted to give me an "appetizer" of a Christmas present.  I received the softest Vikings winter hat.  Well, if he was going to give me an appetizer gift, I would also do the same.  I gave him a Vikings dreadlocks hat that he's been searching for for years.  Kinda funny that we both gave each other Vikings hats, huh?

Did I mention I have a crush on Tim Tebow?  M lovingly refers to me as a cougar because of this.  Sometimes I feel younger than I really am.  

Carbonated Technology

M and I went to Firehouse Subs back in early November.  Have you heard of them?  Their first restaurant of the chain came to Minnesota in August and M was thrilled to find out they are now just miles from us. Whenever we go to Florida, we have to stop there and so he can eat there.  I do have to say, their subs are delicious.  What I wanted to talk about today was actually the fountain pop machine at the store.  Maybe these are around in other places but it was the first time I had ever seen a fountain pop machine like this.  I didn't even know how to work it at first!   It ended up being really easy to figure out.  Just put your cup in the metal area for ice and push the button on the machine for whatever kind of pop you'd like.  Have you seen one like this before or am I out of touch?

Bowling in Blaine

Last Saturday we met Greg and Anna at their house in Coon Rapids to meet their cats.  They have two cats that look similar to Fuzzer.  Their names are Maynard and Scooter and they're really nice cats.  After meeting them, we headed to Blainbrook to go bowling.  We bowled two games and I did my best in quite some time.  I bowled a 126 and 124.  After bowling, we went to a coffee/smoothie place called Flyte.  I had a peach smoothie and everyone else had coffee.  The people working there were so nice and gave us candy canes and then a little bit later came out with a TheraPets Heating Pad Kitty for each one of us.  Shortly after we got home, the snow started.  We went to the backyard and walked to the pond and then came back and jumped on the trampoline for a little bit.  We're just big kids!

Scooter

Maynard

Maynard

Scooter

Fuzzer with TheraPet Cat

Christmas Preparation

Hello!  After 40 posts in November, I needed a blog break to recover from my carpel tunnel.  Ok, not really but a healthy handful of days away from blogging every once in awhile is always good for me.  So here we are, in December already....with the 5th almost in the books.  Where does the time go?

Shopping:

Have you finished started your Christmas shopping?  I don't have to buy for too many people so I guess it's not that difficult however I tend to go overboard and want to keep buying for my family which of course gets expensive but I need to cut myself off at some point.  I have quite a few items that I purchased online that still need to be delivered to me.  Man, do I love online shopping.  I've done quite a bit of it for Christmas the last few years. I can't online shop without purchasing a little bit for myself though.  This year my presents to myself are from Sephora, which I'm still waiting  to receive.  It's not that special though.  It's just foundation that I needed but considering it's expensive, I consider it a gift to myself.  I also purchased the following set on Thanksgiving at Kohl's online. I love the white because it's classic and timeless  It was $39.99 and there is a $20 rebate and then I received an additional 15% off and free shipping.  Plus I earned Kohl's cash with my purchase.  So after rebate, this set cost $14. I impress myself sometimes.

Tree:

Do you have your Christmas tree up?  I wanted to do it the day after Thanksgiving and every day after that but I just couldn't find the time.  I finally did get the tree up on Saturday evening.  I do not enjoy putting up the tree and decorating it.  I don't think I have patience to do it.  The nice thing is M helped a little and I pretty much made him hang out with me while I did it so I would stay interested.  I love it when the tree is complete and then I'm glad I put the effort in.  Do you like putting up your Christmas tree?  Here's a picture of our skinny tree this year:

Wrapping:

Ok, so maybe you've bought some presents and your tree is up but do you have wrapped presents underneath it yet?  I just started wrapping yesterday and got eight presents done.  I have a lot more to go and I'm not excited about it.  I've come to hate wrapping but as long as I tackle a few presents here and there, I'll be fine.  I just don't want to be that person on Christmas Ever wrapping for hours.  Been there, done that.

Lights:

Do you decorate your home/apartment with outdoor lights?  We do not and I actually didn't even consider it until writing this sentence.  There is a housing development down the street and they have so many houses decorated in the neighborhood that it looks magical as you drive through.  Here's one house that I liked but I really should drive by and take a video of all the houses.  Maybe I'll do that later this week.

Baking: 

Do you make Christmas cookies?  I like to bake and I will be making some cookies again this year.  I plan on making a decent variety as I will be giving my grandpa a tin full of cookies, all made with love of course.  I think I might be over my head this year with a plan that I have for some cookies as I've never experimented like this before so I'll let you know how they turn out.  If they do turn out, I'll be more than excited.  Not only do they have to be pretty, I suppose they have to taste good too.

Black Friday

Ok, I promise this is my last post of the day and the month.  I've posted six already today and two yesterday so make sure you are all caught up on my exciting and important life.  40 posts in one month?  Definitely a record for me!

Did you go shopping on Black Friday?  Did you have the day off?  What did you do?

I actually did a lot of my Christmas shopping online this past week as well as on Thanksgiving, which some of the deals that were being offered in store on Friday were being offered online.

I debated going out at midnight on Black Friday to go to Kohl's.  Not because I wanted to shop that badly or because there was something that I needed to buy for me or anyone else but because I had two $10 coupons to spend.  That's $20 for free and I have a hard time passing up free.  I left my house around 12:10 am and headed to Maplewood Mall which is a mere 3 miles from my house.  I had to drive by Best Buy on my way to the mall and saw that it looked like a busy New York City street with people crossing the street every which way and that's when I had the realization that it's midnight, I'm on my way to the mall and I'm an idiot. I also drove past Toys 'R Us where people had their little kids with them (it's midnight!) and pulling them across the street with no regard for traffic.  Anything for a deal, right?

I luckily found a pretty decent parking spot for Kohl's, walked in and saw the lines.  Holy lines!  The lines were backed up half the length of the store at least for every single register.  There were hundreds of people in line at each one and it was only 12:20 am.  I figured that I had a lot of time to shop then while the lines died down.  I did have a couple of things in mind for my family so I picked them up and was ready to check out but the lines were still very long.  I decided to outsmart the system and went to the jewelry counter to check out.  They were calling numbers.  "Number Forty Two!"  I didn't know where to get a number but I looked all around and finally found a sign that had numbers you could pull off.  My number?  47.  Nice!  I only waited about 10 minutes until my number was called.  Once called, they asked me what they could show me in the jewelry cases. "Oh, nothing.  I'm all set, thanks." and I was out the door and home by 1 am.  I wish I could tell you how great of deals I received but I can't because my family reads this blog and the presents I bought just might be for them but if you give me $20 free and 15% off on top of that, I can do pretty good.  Thanks, Kohl's.

As for the rest of the day, I had to work from home for a little bit in the morning and then M and I went out to breakfast at The Neighborhood Cafe (so good) which turned out to be breakfast at noon and then down to First Avenue to buy some concert tickets.  We then went back to St. Paul and stopped at The Wine Thief & Ale Jail, which has many rare beers which makes M extremely happy.  M is a major beer enthusiast so he was like a kid in a candy store when we went in there.  I do have to say that it did look pretty impressive in there and if I was into beer, it would have been exciting for me too (but it wasn't).
 

M went to see The Immortals in 3D while I went shopping again.  We watched The Naked Gun and then M got sick which you can read about on my Thanksgiving post.

Thanksgiving

Is it too late to talk about Thanksgiving?  It was a beautiful, unseasonably warm Minnesota November day.  We tied the high temperature record of 59 degrees.  I went to my parents house where there was 26 people there. We had a delicious meal including all of the usual suspects; turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, corn, cranberries, salad, rolls and pie including pumpkin, apple and french silk.  I don't know how you guys roll at your Thanksgiving dinner but there are so many of us so we just help ourselves and mostly everything is in slow cookers.  What do you guys do?

My sister made this super cute turkey out of veggies.

Let's rewind to a little earlier in the day when I was still at home. Everything was going my way and I had lots of time to get the green bean casserole into the slow cooker, make a honey-orange broccoli salad and roast some sweet potatoes. I even made a pumpkin pie (for the first time) and it smelled so delicious when it came out of the oven.  I set it on a cooling rack on the counter and when I opened the counter above it, a few spice containers fell down and ploop...right into the not-so-cooled but now ugly pumpkin pie.  I bawled my eyes out.  Michael had to comfort me and now looking back at it, I was so emotional about something so silly.  I do hope that the homemade whipped cream that I made made up for the couple of divots on the pie's surface.  I don't eat pumpkin pie but my Aunt Terri attested that it was delicious.     

I didn't get a pic of the pie post baking, pre-accident so an in-process pic will have to do 

While I would have liked to have been with M and his family, I'm thankful I was not.  Why?  Because 11 out of 14 people (except for one family) at their Thanksgiving got sick with food poisoning...or Norovirus...or the flu....or who knows because they can't pinpoint what it was but either way, M was spewing from both ends and I was his nurse, cleaning up puke and well, you know. You know you love someone when you can clean up all that stuff.  My poor baby.  I felt so bad for him but in less than 48 hours, it was done and over with and he was his good old self again.

Vikings vs. Raiders

We woke up on Sunday, November 20th to a cold, 18 degree day.  M and I pulled out the winter gear including boots to keep warm while tailgating.  We had a pretty decent sized group with us this time.  M's friend Wayne and his son along with his cousin and his son met up with us as well as my cousin Tara and her husband Troy. Ok, Tara's not really my cousin, but my cousins' cousin but I still consider her a cousin.  That's four cousins in one sentence.  I ate plastic-looking veggie dogs while the others had burgers that looked and smelled delicious.  M even brought out some White Castle and warmed those babies up on the grill.  To keep semi-warm, I had some hot apple cider with butterscotch schnapps that tasted delicious.

This day was the first day they started using the hand-held metal detectors at the gates of the Metrodome and wow, was this a cluster f*ck.  We stood in line outside in the cold for 40 minutes before even getting in the dome.  I don't know where everything went wrong but they better fix it before the game this Sunday.  We didn't get into the dome until there was about 6 minutes left in the first quarter.  The guy who sits next to us in our seats said that at the start of the game that only half the dome was filled.

We played the Raiders and they've been pretty decent this year...decent enough to win against the Vikings on this day at least.  Vikings lost 27-20 and we lost Adrian Peterson due to a high ankle sprain and ligament damage.  At this point in the season, it doesn't matter much.  I would rather not win any more games so we can have a good draft pick.  

Thankful November: Day Thirty

The last day of Thankful November!  I stuck with it and posted every day.  Today, I'm thankful for...ME!  I'm not the smartest (but I know a little about a lot of things), or the prettiest (but I do alright) and definitely not the skinniest (always a work-in-progress) but I am truly happy with myself and my life.  Overall I've made good choices in life and do not regret what I've done and I hope to never regret what I haven't done.  I have a family that loves me unconditionally (I think...I haven't tested the waters that much!), good friends, my health, a stable job, a college degree, two loving fuzzy babies, enough money to pay my bills, save some and have some fun and a wonderful partner who shows me love every single day.  He cheers me up on my not-so-good days and when I'm having a bad self-esteem day.  He makes me laugh more and harder than anyone else has. He keeps me safe and comforts me when I need a little added security.  He says I always look good and thinks I'm cute, beautiful or sexy, depending on the day.  I am so damn lucky to have all of these things!  I truly am.  I'm so happy to be alive and be ME!

Me-Today!

Joseph Arthur

M and I have seen Joseph Arthur five times when he's come here in concert.  The first concert M and I went to (while dating) was Joseph Arthur on November 17, 2004. (Hey, I'm a girl and I'm good with dates.)  It was a very romantic night and Joseph Arthur is a special artist to us both.  When we found out he was coming in concert recently, we thought about going and decided that despite how good he is and how much we enjoy him, we decided to save the $20 ticket price and forgo seeing him this time around but it turns out that we did end up seeing him and we didn't have a pay a penny to see him.  M won an online contest which scored him two tickets to the show and so on Saturday, November 20th, almost exactly seven years since we had first seen him, we saw him again for our sixth time.

The show was at the Varsity Theater and while I just told you about the AWOLNATION show there and how they wrecked the theater and lights and sound, it wasn't true.  It was true for that show but this show was different.  The theater was back to its old self that I'm used to and the sound was just as I remembered.  There were tables on the main floor and we were lucky enough to share one pretty close to the stage with a couple of girls.  We also ran into one of our friends, Joey and his partner Chris, which was an added bonus.  Both of them love music as much as we do so it's always fun to sit and talk music that isn't stuff you necessarily hear on the radio, music websites and upcoming shows.

Michael, Chris, Joey, Me

Joseph played a lot of songs from his new album but mixed in some old ones too and he played for about 2.5 hours. He is truly an artist of all sorts. He paints while he sings and also did some spoken word.  He brought his main Minneapolis buddy, Kraig Jerret Johnson (Guitarist for The Lonely Astronauts, Jayhawks, Golden Smog and Run Westy Run) to the stage to help him with a few songs as he's done a few times in the past. After the show, a girl came up to Joseph and asked him if she could buy the painting he did while on stage for $500.  They hemmed and hawed for awhile as they said he could get $2-3K for that painting if they bring it back to his gallery but apparently it's a pain to carry them on the road with them so I'm unsure if they accepted her offer or not.  I looked on his art website and he had a 10' x 6 ' painting going for $20K.

Finally, if you want to do me a big favor today, listen to the song below.  It's on his new album and it's such a beautiful song.  If you can't tolerate the song, at least listen to until the 2 minute mark.  Thank you and have a nice day.

It's Bowling Time!

It's getting to be that time of year again...bowling season.  Bowling would not be fun in the summer as you don't want to be a dark bowling alley in the middle of summer but it's a perfect winter activity.  We went bowling for our first time of the season the Saturday before Thanksgiving week.  We met our usual partners, Greg and Anna for a couple of games and wow, was I rusty.  I did break 100 for the second game though. :)  When we came out of the building, it was snowing for the first time this season and it was slippery.  The bowling alley is just under 6 miles from our house and we saw two accidents on the way home.

We all have our own bowling shoes now-  M made his shoe debut

Check out this bowling shoe in the pro shop

Woodbury Dinner

It's been hard to keep up my daily "Thankful November" posts and it's been even more difficult to blog about all the other things going on in my life at the same time.  I'm going to sneak in several posts yet for the remainder of this month and start fresh again for December so look for seven posts between today and tomorrow. Yeah, I know.  

It's already been almost two weeks since my sister and I met with my Grandpa for dinner.  We went to Bonfire in Woodbury for dinner and then went next door to where my sister works.  She's a general manager of a hotel so she gave us a tour of the common areas and then showed us one of the rooms.  Once we came back down to the front desk, my Grandpa told the manager on duty that he liked the room and that the bed bugs were very friendly.  Of course they hate the words "bed bugs" in the hospitality industry and of course he was kidding but it was hilarious.  I told my Grandpa that saying "bed bugs" in a hotel is like saying "bomb" on an airplane!  We thought it would be kind of funny to take a picture of us behind the front desk at the hotel.

Thankful November: Day Twenty Nine

Today I'm thankful for slippers.  Our house is cold quite often and I wouldn't be able to live without slippers in the winter.  I have all kinds of fun fashion for my feet already but M's mom is making me a pair of "Happy Feet" which are slippers she's been making for people since the '70s.  I should be receiving them soon so I'll be sure to post them when I get them.

Thankful November: Day Twenty Eight

Today I'm thankful for my state, the state of Minnesota.  I was born here and I'll probably die here as at least a part-time resident.  I LOVE Minnesota and can't imagine living elsewhere.  I love that I live in the Twin Cities but just two hours away I can be on the North Shore next to Lake Superior.  I love that I can be in another state in about 25 minutes and even another country in about 5 hours by car from my house.  We're lucky enough to have multiple professional sports teams (and want to keep it that way...Vikings!), lots of great restaurants, tons of culture and a wide range of people.  There's not many places in the country where it can be -60 degrees as well as 114 degrees in the summer.  So for those that have never been to Minnesota but only know the stereotypes, it is not cold and snowing in Minnesota all the time!  Check out more about MN weather on Wiki.

Thankful November: Day Twenty Seven

Today I'm thankful for the ocean.  I didn't get to see an ocean in person until 2002 when I saw the Atlantic Ocean for my first time.  Then I saw the Pacific Ocean in 2006.  I am not a big fan of water but I love the beauty and mystery an ocean has.  I would take the ocean for granted if I saw it every day but on cloudy days like today in Minnesota, it's fun to dream of the ocean which makes me appreciate it each time I do get to see it in person.

My first view of the Pacific Ocean- California 2006

Thankful November: Day Twenty Six

Today I'm thankful for my health. My overall health is good.  I've been old enough for awhile now that I think about the big picture when it comes to health so I try and lead my life preventing diseases such as diabetes, coronary heart disease by eating healthier and paying attention to my diet.  I need to exercise more though!

As for the state of temporary health, my poor Michael got food poisoning and was violently sick all night long. I'm glad I'm here to be his nurse until he gets over this.