Hodge Podge

I have so many random little things to blog about that I thought I would do just one post with all my scattered thoughts and pictures and whatever else all together. This is going to be quite random!

I will start off from a week ago...

• I gave blood last Wednesday as I do every 60 days or so and M sent me this quick write up he would call a "poemy thing" that I thought was funny. I'm positive he didn't think I would be posting this when he wrote it but I had to anyways. I told him that the dude that took my blood looked like he was straight from the hood and all gangsta-like with his clothes underneath his white coat.

Gangsta G, lookin' all hip to the tee

Digs his needle into Angelbaby's sleeve

As the warm blue flows to the cool red

My Anglebaby feels tired and craves a cozy bed

Blood packed up and sent off to the rescue

Her white blood cells are weak and contemplate the flu

• M and I went to the Saints game last Thursday with his company. They sponsor a night out there and there's a picnic and all the fun things that go along with a Saints game. Here's some pics:

• We went to Sebastian Joe's Ice Cream in Uptown on Friday night and it was so good. I have only been there one other time and have wanted to go with M for years. The line was literally at least 25 people deep. Normally I wouldn't wait this long for ice cream but I knew it would be worth it. I even go to hear "Billie Jean" on the satellite radio there and they cranked it up when it came on. We sat in this cute little alley patio area and ate our ice cream on a nice summer night. M: Cinnamon Honey Crisp. Me: Chocolate Cha Cha (chocolate and peanut butter with chunks of chocolate)
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• We have a list on our fridge of the "Best of's" from the City Pages, "Best of the Twin Cities" list. We decided to try best burger on the list, which was from The Blue Door, a cute little neighborhood pub. The burger was very good and the beer battered green beans were delicious!
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• On Saturday night, we went to The Bulldog, which now has a location in downtown St. Paul (lowertown), which is fantastic! I have been to both Minneapolis locations but it's great to have some new restaurants/bars livening up downtown St. Paul. Right next door is another new location for Barrio, a tequila bar and one of Tim McKee's adventures. It just opened about 2 weeks ago so it was packed. They have over 100 different types of tequila! Here is a picture of our beer flights from The Bulldog. If you love beer, this is a great place for you. Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain, er, I mean the menu. They had a great tribute to Michael Jackson there too and we heard about 10 songs while we were there during the course of the evening.

• Punch is my favorite restaurant of the moment. I want to go there every day and order the margherita (basil) sausage, mushroom and onion pizza. It's so good.
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• Speaking of food, someone has published the calories for Cheesecake Factory. I looked and it is amazing at how many items on the menu are 1500-2000+ calories. The most calories I could find was for the Pasta Carbonara with Chicken which comes in at 2,291 calories. (Keep in mind, a pound is 3,500 calories) And forget about that piece of carrot cake. That's 1,549 calories. Check out the calories to be amazed.
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• M and I play this game quite often where we will bet someone something, usually outrageous because the chances of getting the answer correct are very slim. For example, M might say, "If you can guess what song I have in my head, I will give you $1,000". So I will think for the most random of songs because it's not going to be something obvious and I will say some crazy random song from 1983 and I always get it wrong. I do the same to him and he's never gotten it right either. The bet for a dinner at Kincaid's is still very hard to get but not as random as the $1,000 answer but still, neither of us have won that bet either. Last night we were in bed and we played the same type of game. He said, I bet you dinner at Kincaid's that you can't guess what time it is (we'd been in bed talking for quite some time) and then add up all the individual numbers to come up with a number. I did that and guessed 11. Someone's going to KINCAID'S!!! I got it right this time and I just laughed and laughed because our stupid little game finally paid off! I actually took some time to arrive at my answer of 11 because the answer was 10 when M asked the question but since the clock turned before I answered, I got it right. Mmmm.....warm brie, Caesar salad, filet mignon and creme brulee!
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• We finally have our 2nd Minnesota senator! Al Franken was declared the winner of the MN Senate race after 8 long months of legal battles and hanging chads. Ok, not quite hanging chads but same concept. He's good enough, he's smart enough and doggone it, people like him!
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• It was my cats' birthday's today. Fuzzer is 9 and Powder is 6. I decided to make their birthdays the same day since when I got Fuzzer, all I knew about him was he was born in 2000 and Powder was 9 months old when I got him at the very end of March so I figured that putting their birthday's at July 1st would be perfect....half way for Fuzzer and almost perfect for Powder. Hey, my cats are my kids! I can celebrate their birthdays!
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• Does anyone want to buy Jonas Brothers tickets for next Wednesday's show at the Target Center? I have two sets of 2 tickets. One set on the floor and one set that is lower level, center. I'll give you MORE than a deal on them. (Yeah, don't even ask why I have them)
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• I think that's all of my randomness for this week. I'm glad to be caught up with my thoughts!

1 Year ago

Today is my one year anniversary at my job.  I unfortunately work in the mortgage industry so you know how volatile it has been the past couple of years.  I was laid off from my past job on October 19, 2007.  I was on vacation in Dallas when I got the call from my supervisor.   I was let go, along with at least 1,900 others and it was effective immediately.  I never really got the chance to have an actual goodbye with my coworkers.  I was compensated very well for my departure at least.  So that's the story of why I am where I'm at now.  I have since had to switch from residential mortgage to commercial mortgage.  My company is a commercial real estate banking firm.  It is one of the largest commercial banking firms in the world, with 30 offices around the country.  I work solely with one lender, Freddie Mac, to assure that the insurance on all multifamily housing is compliant according to Freddie Mac's requirements for loan closing and subsequently each year after.  I also handle insurance losses, which today I was informed of a fire at an apartment building that killed two cats.  I wish the borrower hadn't told me that!  It made me sad and I keep thinking about it.  It is kind of interesting though to see what kind of damage takes place.  I am currently working on a loss that is well into the millions from Hurricane Ike.  The commercial mortgage business has taken some what of a hit due to the economy but not like residential.  I'm going to cross my fingers that I can keep this job for awhile.  

Today's the Day!

Not that you need any reminders, get out and... 

Suck it up

Michael and I had a couple of friends over a few Friday's ago for a wine and beer night and I thought that I better do a quick vacuum in the living room.  I realized that the suction on the vacuum was not very good and it definitely wasn't performing very well.  I don't know how long vacuums are supposed to last.  I have purchased 2 vacuums in my life and they happened to be the exact same model.  So the following Monday, I bought a new vacuum.  I was pretty excited to get home and use it.  Since I did not want to take out a loan to buy a Dyson animal hair vacuum, I went with the Bissell Pet Hair Eraser instead and it still seemed expensive to me.  Ok, keep in mind that I just vacuumed a few days earlier.  I started the bagless vacuum up and no kidding, the thing was fully of dirt and mostly cat hair in less than a minute.  Pictures below to prove it!  Gross, but cool!  One of my cats is white so you can't see shedded hair over the whittish carpet we have.  So I continue to vacuum and empty canister after canister of cat hair and dirt.  I vacuumed the whole house, couches, edging the floor and ceiling and all, and I ended up dumping 12 canisters!  Isn't that gross?  You probably think I live in a dirt house.  Apparently I did.  The canister isn't very big and it doesn't take that much to fill it up, especially when it's fluffy cat hair.  I was surprised of how much actual dirt we had upstairs.  Yuck.  But now I have a fully-functioning vacuum again.  Who knew I would get so excited about this purchase and drag you through the whole experience?!  Have fun looking at the pictures of the vacuum and clean carpet.  Exciting, huh?

This is the only time Powder's not scared of the vacuum, when it's in the box.   

Fuzzer on the vacuum box trying to break it into it because he wanted to vacuum

Here's the fully assembled product!  I guess I didn't realize you need to put these things together.  What's that you say??  Oh,  yep, we do have purple textured walls! 

Full canister #1

Brand new clean carpet again!

Crazy McCain Rally Lady

As I watched Thursday's political episode of Saturday Night Live, they did a skit about the lady in the video below.  I hadn't heard of her before then so I had to look her up to see what she is all about. She calls Obama an Arab and then goes on and on about how bad he will be for our country.  WHAT? The point of this post is not to tell you who to vote for because I don't care who you choose to elect.  My point is to PLEASE be an educated voter.  PLEASE be knowledgable about what you are speaking of and what the candidates are about.  So many times it is the focus that the younger people are not paying attention but as you will see, it can be the older people too.  Watch the video below (with subtitles) if you can, as it is painful to watch the uninformed woman that we get to claim as one of our own as she is from Minnesota.  Geez.  The Saturday Night Live parody video is below the real video.  It's about 7 minutes but worth watching the whole thing. 

Randoms for the Week

I started to get sick last weekend and didn't start feeling better until about Wednesday so I have been slacking on the posts. I thought I would try and sum up my week in this one post.

Last Saturday I went with my Dad and my sister, Jamie to the Omni Theatre at the Science Museum to go see Mysteries of the Great Lakes. It was my Dad's birthday on Monday the 29th so I took him for his birthday and also bought him a book at the store in the musuem. We went to eat at Maverick's in Roseville afterwards. We dropped off my Dad and then my sister and I hung out all day and night, just shopping, looking at makeup and then ordering Chinese food and coming back to my house to watch some episodes of "Sex and the City". It was a really good day and I really appreciated the time I got to spend with my Dad and Jamie.

On Sunday morning, I had a cold but I still participated in a 5K/10 mile run/walk called Women Run the Cities, sponsored by the MNCREW, which is Minnesota Commercial Real Estate Women. This race was all women and sponsored Ann Bancroft's foundation. We had a small team of people from my work and they ordered shirts for us. Here are a couple of pictures. We could never get all of us all together since we were scattered but here is the majority of us. Two of our girls ran the 10 mile while the rest of us did the 5K.


I also got a new external hard drive for my computer not too long ago. I posted a while back that I didn't have a computer because the power went out and there was a surge and my computer didn't work. I was lucky enough not to have lost anything on my hard drive but only having to replace the power supply. I decided that it was time to buy an external hard drive and here is a picture of it. First of all, I hate my hand in this picture but my hands are really small so you can get the idea of how small and portable this portable drive is. So far, so good!

Lastly, I wanted to show you the grapes I took a picture of. Where are these grapes, you say? Napa or Sonoma Valley? Nope, they are from my backyard. I thought they were so pretty in the sun. And they taste really good too!


But since I am thinking of grapes, I thought I would share a picture with you actually from Napa Valley in California. Michael and I went there almost 2 years ago. Looking at these pictures again makes me want to go back.

The Mirror Can Be Very Important

Michael went to work earlier this week and had conversations with multiple people before going to the bathroom and looking at himself in the mirror. On first glance, everything looks ok.

But at a 2nd closer look, you realize that Michael's white under shirt is not only inside out, it is backwards and the "tag" printed on the shirt is perfectly positioned in between his collar. He noticed this after being at work for an hour so at least he didn't go through the whole day like this. Michael honey, next time get dressed with the lights on and look in the mirror before you leave. Oh, and if any of you are ever interested in buying Michael some white shirts, you now know the brand and size!

Publish Post

My week

Hi Everyone,

I haven't written since Monday. This week has been an array of emotions. I've been getting into bed early and just relaxing every night reading magazines. Work has been a little stressful as I have been busy and finishing up with an audit from Freddie Mac. I am glad I am finally done with it...until next year again. I got some pretty good news from my doctor yesterday. Last March when I went in for my annual exam, I found out that my triglycerides were high. Your triglyercides are a component of a cholesterol test. My cholesterol was fine (184 total) but my triglyercides (I'll call them T's) were not. The T level is how your body metabolizes sugar. A normal level is 150 and below and mine were 256. I was told to diet and exercise and read some information to avoid refined sugar and alcohol. I did the best I could these 4 months. I was VERY conscious of my sugar intake and I didn't drink alcohol. My results came back and my T's are now 198, which are still elevated but my doctor seems not to be worried and happy with the results. The numbers showed her I was making a conscious effort. Oh, and my cholesterol went down another 16 points to 168!
Happy Birthday to Tanya Hughes, my oldest and dearest friend whose birthday was Tuesday. We've known each other since we were in 8th grade and we don't get to see each other very often but we've got a date scheduled in 2 weeks and I'm excited to see her. Happy 13th anniversary to Samantha(Brodie)and Tim who celebrated their anniversary on Tuesday too. Michael and I went to visit my Gramma and Grandpa Falzone on Tuesday night. My gramma made me 7 dish towels, each labeled the day of the week. They have cats on them and they are very cute! Now I suppose I'll need to start doing dishes! Before stopping at their house, we went to the cemetery to look at my grandma's plot. There were 5 deer right on the hill above her plot. 2 bucks, a doe and 2 fawns. The one deer was a 6 point buck. The fawns were so cute. They were so small and looked like little dogs. And of course I didn't have my camera with me. My sister Jamie comes home from Branson again tomorrow and she'll be home until August 11th when she goes back to work down there. Finally, I've got a fun afternoon planned tomorrow and in the latter part of this weekend so I'll write again soon. Friday's almost here!

It's almost Friday

Michael and I were on the motorcycle tonight in Shoreview and we saw 13 turkeys! There were 3 adults and 10 little turkey babies. They were kind of cute. Then we saw another 2 turkeys at another place in Shoreview. Then on the way home, we saw a doe eating grass in the front yard of a house on Spooner Lake and it was so tame. We just sat there and watched it and she knew we were there and didn't even flinch when the motorcycle got loud. That's it for today. It's been a long week and I am definitely ready for the weekend.