Awkward & Random Wednesday

I like to have posts that are about something. That have an over-arching theme and make a point. That entice and entertain my reader.

Sorry all, but today is just awkward and random!

It all started this morning when I was at work. 8:30 am and I go to text Big Daddy since we hadn’t spoken since our pre-coffee (him) pre-naked nap (me) grumblings. I thought I was being so sweet. “Love you babe! Let’s make enchiladas tonight!!” About 10 minutes later, I got a text from him saying “Love u! Hope ur having a good morning!” Hmmm. No mention of loving me ALSO. No mention of enchiladas. That’s weird. The text I sent isn’t shown… even weirder…

Oh wait… that’s cause I sent it to Laura from Happy Hour with a Housewife.

You can see our little convo there. We had texted the night before and I didn’t look whose text history was up before sending my text love. Best part? My bestie Laur? Lives in California. So I bothered her at 5:30 IN THE MORNING. At least I didn’t complain about my period or tell him(/her) in so many words that I wanted to jump him. Love ya Laur!

Also I take back the love for my Mom since she just got an iPhone 4 today and I am insanely jealous.

After my iPhone incident, I decided I needed a more full-coverage case. Again, I think we all realize by now I work in the mall, so I talked to our cell phone accessory selling dude and he said he’d cut me a deal. And cut me a deal he did. I got my wonderfully Sassy giraffe print iPhone case!

My cell phone background is a pic that the aforementioned Laura sent me. It’s a pug flipping out saying “OMG!! I thought u were dead!” Love it love her!

I also got a phone case for my MIL. We gave her B’s old cell phone (an LG Dare) and since her partner has the same phone, we felt she needed a case so they didn’t mix them up.

Fun, no? I was happy to get it for her!

What else can I shove into this abyss of randomness? Watermelon! We had a sales meeting and someone brought in watermelon. Our pugs love “Wally-Melon” so I gave them some.

“Wut iz dis? Wally Melon? Also Mommeh you apparuntly likez dah Mancala an dah PedEgg.” (Yea sorry about that.)

Seriously, you’d think we don’t feed them. We do, I promise. PS check out the RAPTOR NAILS stuck in my leg. Thanks, Sophie.

After feeding the puglets (and us) I decided to work on something that Ashley from Wife on a Budget inspired us to do. She created a cleaning schedule and is sticking with it. I always do WAY better when I have a list to check off, so we came up with our own version. Then Ashley posted this spreadsheet, and it inspired me to make a spreadsheet to check off each week.

Ahh our fridge. So many of our favorite things. Mellow Mushroom. The Colts. PIZZA. Stalking.

(That would be a picture from our first month of dating, on a trip to Chicago!)

We have to initial when we do each task. Every day we do the dishes and counters. Mondays are for nothing else since they suck and I watch RHONJ. Tuesdays we vacuum. (I didn’t yesterday since we were at dinner with my MIL.) Wednesdays are for towels and the bathroom counter. Thursdays we vacuum again (we have pugs, remember?) and wash our sheets. We also take out the trash since it’s collected Friday AM. Friday we have no extra tasks, but during the weekend we need to vacuum again, do a more thorough bathroom clean (wiping the tub, cleaning the floor) and also clean the kitchen floor.

We’ll probably add a few things to this as we think of them, but it’s working for us so far! Last night we went out to dinner, so we didn’t have dishes (yay!) but missed vacuuming (boo.) I took care of that tonight though. I also sprinkled baking soda on the carpet since it’s been smelling like pug piss in our living room.

“WTF is this?!?!”

It worked! Our carpet looks and feels great, and Big Daddy said “I don’t know if it’s just me being congested, but it doesn’t smell like pee in here!” SUCCESS.

Oh and towels aren’t checked off yet in the picture for today, but don’t worry, they were completed post-photo. I could tell you were worried.

All I can do now is apologize for this disturbingly long and awkward entry.

Jugs of Vodka

I got a really wonderful lovely amazing card from my Mom today.

(The inside says “You just let me know”)

She wrote some lovely things to me about how proud my dad would be of me and how hard she knows days like Father’s Day can be for me. It was such a sweet, unexpected gesture. But the vodka? Take a closer look:

It’s an inside joke. Since first of all, my Mom doesn’t drink. And second, she’s NEVER been ok with us getting drunk, even when we were twenty-one plus. She’s always sure to tell us we look like fools if we do. But the real inside joke here is because of something that happened in the summer of 2006.

I had just turned 21 that past April and was enjoying my first legal-drinking summer. My girlfriends and I joined Weight Watchers (which was awesome and helped me lose a lot of weight!) and for a cookout, I bought a huge bottle of some flavored vodka for us to drink with diet 7-up. We just had a drink or two each, and I brought it to my room that night to save for later barbecues.

The next day I found my vodka bottle with a note on it:

In case you can’t read that postie note, it says “How many points is Smirnoff?”

Just a friendly reminder to 1) avoid excessive drinking and 2) stay within my Weight Watchers points.

I love my Mommers so much. She gives me so much material. For therapy and/or a tell-all book.

Viet Cong Pirate

I love my sisters. So, so much.

I shared with them both (Min & Rosh) about the Mancala game, and ended up texting with Rosh a bit before bed that night. Which apparently gave me some majorly screwed up dreams.

I dreamed (dreamt? I thought it was dreamt but spell check says no) that my darling sister, Rosh:

…had left her exciting summer internships and moved to Florida with some scary guy to become a Viet Cong Pirate. Picture pirates of the Caribbean plus Viet Cong. She was in some jungle in Florida with tons of guns, swords, and ammunition. A little Somali pirate, perhaps? Think of their crazy poses with guns. She was in tons of pictures posing like that on their website. I cried and cried looking at those pictures. We had been contacting her to come home but she and her new Viet Cong Pirate boyfriend wanted no part of it. (He looked a little like Rufio from Hook)

RRUUUUUUFFFFFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

And Rufio Boyfriend had this crazy weapons collection and I was so confused as to why photos of them on the website were not causing him to be pursued by authorities.

I remember just waiting by the phone to hear that she was killed in their Viet Cong Pirate-ly activities.

Luckily it was a dream. And she thinks I’m crazy.

I wonder if pug farts cause crazy dreams?

Red Mango and Cockscomb and Bugg’s Tongue, Oh My!

What a weekend, folks! It started with a wedding under a willow tree yesterday.

It was nearly 100 degrees, and while fans were provided, I did worry that Big Daddy might pass out onto the grass. It was H-O-T HOT!!!! Luckily they kept the ceremony brief and beautiful. The groom, one of my coworkers, pinned back the branches of this willow to make a chuppah. It was wonderful! Here’s the chuppah better seen, it was while they were moving chairs from the front yard to the backyard for the reception.

The decor was amazing. First of all, the flowers were some of the best I’ve seen. I had to ask what some of them were! My favorite was this furry, coral-ish flower in the boutonnieres.

I was all, “I’m going to be creepy and take a picture of your bout.” And Big Daddy was all, “…at least she knows she’s creepy.” The flower (plant?) is called cockscomb celosia. It’s the red and orange part. The groomsmen’s were just red. Beautiful! The centerpieces were real grass that they grew, with paper flowers.

After the wedding we went to a housewarming party. It was a long, hot, fun-filled day! We were quite lazy this morning, but planned a productive afternoon. First, a trip to Red Mango. I was expecting it to be better than our last. Let me preface by saying I’m a picky consumer. I like stores and restaurants to provide the type of service they advertise, and I like to make sure that a store knows if they do a bad (or good!) job.

Last time I went to Red Mango, I asked for two flavors in one cup. And they said no. That it was against the rules. (I don’t get that at all.) I tweeted to their CEO (@DanKimRedMango) and he tweeted back that it WAS allowed. In fact, they credited my Club Mango card $5. Which is excellent customer care and service. I went back (to get my pomegranate and vanilla in the same dang cup thank you very much) with B today, and got the same server, with the same answer, “We can’t do that, it’s against the rules.” Seriously? I told them “I contacted the CEO and he says you can.” And they replied that their particular store owner doesn’t allow it. I begrudgingly took my pomegranate with dark chocolate chips.

Good, but I was still angry. It’s the principle of the thing! Listen to your CEO biatch! I tweeted to the CEO again and he replied:

I appreciate this. In fact I LOVE it. This CEO cares. In a really frank sort of way. That’s kind of rare. I appreciate a CEO who is willing to listen to customers and make things right. So bravo, Red Mango. For now. If I get the same answer next time I’m in I’ll be baffled and less enthused.

We left Red Mango and stopped in Shane Co. to get our rings shined up. One of my pave diamonds was looking dark- nothing a good cleaning couldn’t fix. Gratuitous ring shot from post-cleaning:

After Shane Co. we went to Meijer for our grocery shop. And as you can see from the above photo’s quality… I also got a memory card for my camera again! WOOT! Although some photos just have to be taken, no matter what camera you have…

Bugg Tongue Sunday!!!! It has nothing to do with anything, but why not?

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Pizzology & Mancala

I had wonderful day yesterday! Big Daddy and I are really poor (obvs) and I think that keeps us from going out and doing a lot of things we’d love to do – concerts, partying, travel, new restaurants, museums, etc. Fun things tend to cost money. We decided a day or so ago that we can find cheaper ways to have fun – or at least better than just sitting in front of the TV. When you’re just coming home and turning on the TV- you are boring. So yesterday we decided to not be boring.

We went to one of our favorite places for dinner, Pizzology. It’s AMAZING pizza and Italian-esque fare. It’s in Carmel, a suburb just north of Indianapolis. The only place that’s been smaller with a longer wait was a Chinese food place in NYC that I lovingly called China Wine, partly because I forget the generic, typical Chinese-Place name, and partly because they serve you free boxed wine the whole meal. It’s within walking distance of the American Museum of Natural History. Just saying. I can give anyone in NYC directions if you’d like.

We’d been to Pizzology twice before, and it’s surprisingly affordable. The pizzas are cooked in an 800 degree oven and are so authentically good. When I was in Sicily, the pizzas were like this. (And I’d eat one a day, obv.) Their appetizers are great as well.

Last night we had to wait about 15 minutes for seating. If we arrived later, it could have been longer! Although this might be the ONE PLACE that’s 100% worth it. They sat us next to the chalkboard that listed our favorite pizza:

That’s what we got on our first visit, and it’s oh-so-good.

Yesterday, we started with some beers. I got whatever Sun King they had on draft. Big Daddy got some lager from Lafayette. (We were so excited about our meal we forgot the beer specifics.) While we’ve loved the grilled romaine appetizer, yesterday was a zucchini fritter kind of day. It comes with parmesan reggiano and truffle oil… it’s such a wonderful flavor. We’ve made them at home before, but they’re too time-consuming to be worth it, so we just have to have them at Pizzology!

We told our server we wanted the Mortadella pizza as our entree. It is a sauceless pizza, with olive oil, mozzarella, and arugula, topped with capicola and served with a garlic spread on the side. Amazing. Our server, Brooke, said that that used to be her favorite, before she tried the Lombardy. That pizza is smoked mozzarella, arugula, and parmesan, with prosciutto on top. I love when servers make recommendations, and it sounded amazing, so we said “why not!?”

I forgot to take a picture of the fritters. Trust me, they were good.

We inhaled them! The appetizer comes with two small fritters. Then we got our pizza…

AMAZING! It’s so thin, and crispy, and chewy, with sharp flavors that blend together artfully. The Lombardy had a wonderful smokey flavor from the mozzarella. I think we missed the spiciness of the Mortadella, but we’d still give both pizzas a 10 out of 10.

Then comes the gelato. Which is much smoother and creamier than any ice cream you’ve ever had. I have always gotten the pistachio (my favorite!) but they were out. So we got the triple chocolate.

It had real chocolate flavor and was not at all overly sweet. Brooke scooped it right from the top too, where there were tons of the dark chocolate chips. It was a wonderful finish to our meal.

I think you can tell that I’d recommend Pizzology to anyone. If any of you lovely blog friends come visit Indiana, I will take you here! It was a great, affordable date night for us.

We also decided to start spending more time playing games instead of watching TV. You know, active instead of passive. We went to Target to buy Scrabble, but then I saw this too…

MANCALA! My childhood favorite! My sisters and I would always play this down the shore on rainy days (since our shore house didn’t have cable ever, not even a TV for a few years!) I texted them this picture and my youngest sister Rosh said “Awww how nostalgic! I cheated so much playing that!” Nice, Rosh. Best part of buying this game? It was $4.99!!! I made Big Daddy play a few games last night.

My Friday was proof that you can have a lot of fun on a small budget. Now who’s coming to Indiana to play mancala and eat pizzology with me?!

“This is why we don’t have nice things.”

I had a really off day yesterday. I messed up at the grocery, and then turned off the oven when I shouldn’t have while cooking dinner. I was feeling tired and poopy about my day. It was not even 9:00pm and I told Big Daddy that I was throwing in the towel on the day. I sulked off to our room… and while walking in, dropped my phone.

My three-month-old iPhone.

Onto our wood floor.

Goodbye, working phone.

Yep, it was down for the count. And we definitely don’t have $200 for a new phone lying around. I did this to my MacBook as well (and have a huge gash across the screen corner. “THIS IS WHY WE DON’T HAVE NICE THINGS!” says it all.)

The jig is up, I’m pretty sure you all realize I work in a mall. And there’s an Apple store in the mall. So I figure, I can just dance myself down there and figure out what the deal is.

Oh wait a second. Today? Apple iPhone 4 launch. People lined up while it’s still dark. Lines for hours. A packed store. And no genius bar appointments. Perfect.

I cried a lot. I found a friend willing to give me their old AT&T phone. I went to work with my broken iPhone, sad and defeated. Ready to be iPhone-less for weeks.

One of my coworkers is also iPhone obsessed, and told me I should just go talk to them, since iPhones have a pretty long warranty. I planned to head over there after the rush died down. Meanwhile, my phone rang when someone called. So that was fun. Couldn’t see who it was or answer it, but yep, the phone was functioning.

I headed to the halls to use the restroom, and saw one of the familiar blue shirts. I yelled “HEY IPHONE GUY!” The poor dude stopped. I told him that my phone had broken, and that I saw they weren’t taking appointments for the day. Was there any way to get in there to have someone look at it? This is where fate comes in. iPhone guy said “yea, I’m actually going to be the one employee handling repairs, starting in about forty-five minutes. Just come to the front of the line and tell them you’re there to see me for an emergency repair.” How did I get so lucky?

At my lunch break, I went to the front of the line (flashing my mall name tag so I wasn’t slaughtered by angry iPhone 4 customers) and told the “bouncer” my deal. He let me right in and I waited for about 10 minutes. Then iPhone guy came up to me, inspected my phone, and went off to the back. As I sat at the back of the store, I saw countless boxes of new iPhones being given out. I fantasized about how they’d say “oh, your phone is broken, here’s a new iPhone 4!” Kind of like you’d fantasize about being given a million dollars by a stranger for no reason. Illogical but fun to pretend.

iPhone guy came out and had me sign paperwork. I asked for what. He said to replace my screen. I asked how much. He said free. I asked when. He said – now! Here you go, it’s already fixed.

Seriously, it was that fast.

A free, five-minute fix to my precious iPhone.

It really says something, the way Apple takes care of it’s customers.

If only I could find a way to get someone to give me a new iPhone…

(PS- I am definitely getting myself a more substantial phone case!)

Sleepless in Pugattle.

That’s a horrible blog post title, but I’m sleep deprived. You’ll see.

Last night we had horrible thunder. Not just a half hour of booms in the middle of the night. The thunder started before we went to bed and lasted all. night. long.

Our pugs do not react well to storms.

Who, US?

Yes you three. You troublemakers! Around 3:30 am I was about one bark away from strangling the closest pug to me and making an example out of him or her.

To be fair, I think I have to discuss our unique little pugs.

They’re puppy mill rescue. And while it must be great to get a dog from a puppy and train it and have it fetch your newspaper and sleep in it’s crate, we couldn’t do that. We rescued dogs that truly needed homes. (As much as I get happy for people who get new puppies from breeders, etc… I judge them. A lot. RESCUE. Pounds have puppies too. End rant.)

My pugs cannot be confined. They had horrible conditions. Sophie made herself bleed when I had her in her crate once, trying to scratch out.

So… these pugs sleep with us in our bed. Mostly that’s Sophie’s fault, since the other two aren’t really as vocal. We started out trying to keep them elsewhere at night and then had to adjust to their needs, and eventually, we just caved for our sanity. Do we love it? Not always. It’s annoying in our 11 x 11 bedroom with our queen size bed to have 1/4 of it go to straight up PUG. And pug hairs in the bed aren’t fun either.

In general, to the untrained outside eye, they’re a mess and a responsibility. True, the pug hairs that accumulate along our baseboards and in corners are… gross. And Sophie (neurotic pug!) licks when she’s upset/nervous/bored, leaving huge lick stains on our microfiber couch (any help getting those out would be appreciated.) Not to mention the weird lingering pee smell in our living room right now that we CANNOT FIND THE SOURCE OF. They can’t do tricks and their vet bills aren’t tiny by any means.

But, there are many wonderful things about them. The snuggles and the cute faces. The loving licks and the unparalleled greeting we receive when we get home from work. They’re our babies and bring so much joy to us that I cannot imagine my life without. Seriously… they are our children!

But when it storms, they are rotten, loud, sleep-depriving children.

We probably got about three hours of steady sleep last night all together. Big Daddy and I woke up biting each others’ heads off from lack of sleep. Hell, this entry is probably only somewhat readable.

It was nothing a venti extra coffee frappachino couldn’t fix. Somewhat.

The moral of this story? B and I are going to try to figure out how to turn our bedroom into a pug-free sleep zone. Which is hard when your pugs are whiny velcro-like pugs who don’t like being apart from their mom and dad. Thoughts?

ps- Fun announcement- I was offered a part-time retail job that I’ve been interviewing for! We could use the moola so, while I don’t necessarily want to work even more, it’s at a really fun place and will be a great thing for our family!

It Never Ends

Today is Father’s Day.

It is my seventh father’s day without my father. It does not get easier and the pain and missing him never ends.

I miss his joyful, loud humor and contagious laugh every minute of every day. Especially today. I love you dad.

Luckily I had a distraction today. My father in law was giving the sermon at his church. Big Daddy and I, and three of his four siblings, attended the service. He spoke from the heart and I am so glad we were able to witness his Faith like that.

Here we are with FIL and his new wife at our wedding. It is their two year anniversary tomorrow! They are wonderful, devoted people. I adore them both and seeing my FIL so open and honest giving the sermon was a memorable experience.

What else “never ends?” Your favorite topic, readers! MY PLUMBING!

Remember how I claimed it was “finally over?”

Meet our swimming pool.

I often wonder what kind of drugs the former owners were on when painting our basement.

I know it’s blurry but I took it quickly with my iPhone to show the plumber. Luckily, he gave us a 30 day guarantee when he came last. This puddle (which takes up nearly 1/4 of our tiny basement) is from Big Daddy showering. I called the plumber (this was Saturday morning) and he said he was super busy, and it might be a day. And oh, to avoid using water. I hadn’t showered yet.

I won’t lie, I cried on the phone. And then when I hung up, I had a really good sob fest. I hate when things spiral out of your control. Luckily, he was able to come later that evening and fix it. Again, the guarantee was a lifesaver. We had a huge storm the night before, and apparently, any root ball debris that was left would be clogged even worse from the flow from the storm. He has a root killer that can be used for tiny root bitlets (technical term) like we have, and lasts a year, so we are doing that treatment in a few weeks.

I’m glad to have this weekend behind me. Good riddance!

Super Secret Pasta Salad

Today I brought leftover pasta salad into work. I told my coworker that I couldn’t wait for lunch since my lunch was AWESOMEEEE!

He said I say that every day.

I tried to deny it, but then he brought up the meatballs, the peas, the $1 baked potatoes… I folded. He was right.

Unfortunately, said coworker doesn’t like pasta salad. I told him that was too bad since mine had a secret ingredient to make it awesome.

Fast forward to almost lunch.

A lady walks into our office and before she addresses her question, she says… “It smells like pot in here!”

Later my coworker asked me if that was the secret ingredient in my pasta salad.

It isn’t. And no one was smoking pot in my office. For reals.

So this might look like a surly bunch but here are the pasta salad ingredients:

This is the easssssiest smeasiest recipe. I have no set quantities. I made this shit up. I’m not even kidding. Just go with the flow.

Ugh, that came out wrong. I promise I’m not smoking pot.

The ingredients are:

• Tri-color rotini. I think it’s just more pasta-salady.
• Cherry tomatoes. Or grape tomatoes. Whichever.
• Onion. I prefer red since I love onion. Plus it looks great.
• Cheese. Cheddar or mozzarella if you prefer.
• Italian dressing- ZESTY, not creamy.
• Honey mustard. If you’re lazy. If not, you can make it with spicy mustard, honey, and mayo. Trust me, it’s better.

Start by cooking the noodles. While you cook:

Chop your onion with a knife made for onions. It’s easier.

Then cut your tomatoes. And USE A TOMATO KNIFE! It’s life changing. I like my tomatoes quartered. Small, even everythings in this pasta salad.

When your pasta is done cooking, strain it and spray it down with cold water until it is cool. Shake it up as you wash it to make sure ALL noodles cool down.

I usually sit it in a big bowl in the fridge at this point.

Then, make your dressing. I’ll start by making honey mustard.

NEVER BUY HONEY MUSTARD AGAIN. IT IS SO EASY TO MAKE DELICIOUS HONEY MUSTARD. I promise.

Start with one part mustard and one part mayo.

Mix well. Mayo makes me gag but I do it for the HoMu. (That’s honey mustard to you squares.)

Then add the honey. One part. So it’s equal honey, mustard, and mayo.

Mix it really well with a fork or whisk until the honey is all combined. It make take a minute.

VOILA. You have DELICIOUS one minute honey mustard. A little black pepper doesn’t hurt if you are just going to use it for dipping. But in this case- no. You are going to add something.

Italian dressing.

Put in twice the Italian as your honey mustard. Ish. You want the dressing to be 2/3 Italian, 1/3 honey mustard. The HoMu cuts the zesty-ness of the dressing and adds slight sweetness and depth.

Pour your tomatoes, onions, a handful or two of shredded cheese, and dressing over the cold pasta.

Toss, and serve! It tastes great the next day too, although sometimes you need to add a splash more Italian dressing to wet it up a little.

Gosh it’s good. Sure, you could add things you like in there too, like olives (ew) or red peppers (double ew.) Make it your own. But no matter what, promise me you’ll add a little honey mustard to your next pasta salad!

Sneak Pug Attack

Where I work, dogs are not allowed in the building. Thousands of people come in every day, and if they bring a dog, security needs to check to make sure they’re an assisting dog or dog in training, etc. Today was one of those days. The lady with her German Shepherd was not-so-nice to us. But apparently it was a service dog. Luckily the dog was better behaved than the woman.

So after this dog-drama, I thought it was a joke when my coworker radioed to report a PUG in property. No joke- Saks allows pugs. Well, any dogs. I guess if you’re going to spend $700 on a blouse, why not bring your furry friend!?

There’s a really sweet girl who works in the Saks executive offices, so I emailed her and asked if the pug rumors were true. Turns out, they were! One of their staff adopted a one-year-old pug and they threw him a pug adoption shower. Meet Maxine:

I got to spend about ten minutes just petting her and telling her how pretty she is! (That’s a Coach collar, naturally.)

Clearly, she’s a model in the making.

Who doesn’t love a unexpected pug fix now and then!?