Snogged: An Insatiable State of Mind

We had our immediate family Christmas last night. My sister cooked a fantastic feast of prime rib, mashed potatoes, cheesy biscuits, brussel sprouts, green bean casserole, and corn. We exchanged gifts. My haul included a state park sticker for 2017, a Starbucks gift card, a Bucky Badger hat, The Steampunk Bible, the children's book Penguin Problems, and a Day of the Dead Sugar Skull painted by 7-year old niece. My sister, Katie, scored serious geek cred and got my husband and I a set of Star Wars t-shirts. Mine has Princess Leia in silhouette and says "I love you." Nick's has Han's silhouette and says "I know." We're going to wear them when we go see Rogue One on Monday.

The next few days will be full of holiday cheer so I'm not sure how often I'll be online. Peace and love to you all!

secondmezzanine came to visit me this weekend!

*bounces*

( Weekend Deets )

I figured it was time for an update on all things snogged.

1) Currently reading: Bared To You: A Crossfire Novel by Sylvia Day. The writing is good, but the story isn't so great. I also started my book for book club last night called: The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club: Power, Passion, and Politics in the Nation's Capital by C. David Heymann. It appears to feature ladies from the Reagan-era and I'm sorely unfamiliar so I feel a bit confused and not entirely sure yet why I should care about this book.

2) Current wellness plan: Zumba and Party and Pump classes. I go three times a week and I'm loving it. :) I also love that I'm making new friends.

3) Current work status: Work is crazy as always, but I'm managing just fine.

4) Current wedding planning: It's going slowly. I think with the wedding not happening until September of 2014, I'm not really feeling the push to really knock things out yet. I'm sure it will happen in time though.

5) Current exciting news: My daddy passed his electrician's exam!!!! After months of studying hard, he got an 84% on a 50 question test. I'm so proud. :)

I am so looking forward to being off this week and not having to return to work until January 2nd. Sure, I'll be spending loads of time with family celebrating the holidays and the birthdays (my sister Mary is a Christmas baby and my mom was born the day after), but it's not all bad.

So far, things have actually been pretty good.

1) On Friday, Nick and I celebrated Yule and exchanged presents. After the ring, I hadn't expected him to actually get me anything, but he surprised me with an Adipose Stress Toy, a Cthulhu word game, and Cthulhu dice game. I'm looking forward to trying the games out with my cousins on Christmas day. I think they will be amused.

2) On Saturday, I got to spend some quality time with dragonydreams! We saw The Hobbit and had nummy custard at Culver's. She also gifted me with the TV show, Girls, on Blue-Ray. It's a show I've never seen, but so many have raved about how funny it is that I wanted to see for myself.

3) On Sunday, our friend Kit visited and we did a gift exchange. He gave me a nice set of Christmas hand towels and apologized for the delay with my other gift as Fed-Ex had not been able to deliver it on account of the snow storm.

4) Nick and I are planning to watch the 2006 film, All The King's Men, tonight for I want to see how different it is from the book I'm reading for my book club discussion group in January. I only hope that the movie is more exciting than the book has been.

My dad posed a challenge to me this weekend (a recap on that to come later) because he needs some ideas for the haunted house this year (http://www.terroronruralstreet.com/).

Specifically, he needs to name three clowns.

- An evil one.

- A sad one (Nick suggested "Melonfolly").

- A dead one.

I'm reaching out to my friends for this one in the hopes that we can generate some really cool ideas for this project.

Also, I figured I could sweeten the pot by offering a drabble or other shiny thing to the person (or persons) who supply the winning name(s). :)

Friday Night:
& Went to visit my parents and we decided to go shopping when I got there. Mom and I went to go look at dresses since my cousin is getting married this summer. I found this dress at Penney's and I fell in love with it.

&Went to Uno's Chicago Grill for dinner. I had the field greens and goat cheese side salad and a bowl of New England Clam Chowder. It was delicious!

&Dad introduced me to the TV show, The Finder. Can't say that it's one I'd watch religiously, but it was a fun show.

Saturday:
&Went to see Cabin in the Woods with my dad and my friends, Mindy and Paul. I'm not usually one to go see the non-cheesy horror films, but I did enjoy this one. Fran Kranz was absolutely brilliant in his role. I also loved the fact that there were two older gentlemen (late 70's/early 80's) who were sitting in the row in front of us and really seemed to be getting into it. When the movie ended, the one looked to the other and said "Time for a martini." Then, they grabbed their canes and trundled down the stairs together. So cute!

&We ate dinner at Mama Mia's and while I've enjoyed their food in the past, I wasn't quite so thrilled this time. I ordered the Wild Mushroom and Herb Ravioli and opted to get the alfredo sauce on the side because I wasn't sure I would need it for the pasta, but figured it would be yummy for the garlic bread. The garlic bread was so oily and buttery that it was hard to eat and the Alfredo sauce came out cold. Like pulled-from-the-fridge-and-dumped-in-a-bowl cold. :/ The waiter went to reheat it and when it came back, all the ingredients had separated. Let's just say I stayed away from the Alfredo.

Sunday:
&Came back to Portage and found that my copy of the Starkid SPACE tour DVR had been delivered. It also came with a mini-Starkid headband, a pair of child-sized Starkid socks, and a message from the Ann Arbor T-Shirt Company saying that I rock. :) Totally unexpected surprise. :)

It's been a solidly decent weekend on this side of the fence. We've had 80°F days (which is kinda crazy for Wisconsin in March, but I'm not going to complain so much.)

On Friday night, I went to go visit my parents and hung out with my sister, my niece, and my nephew. We went out for a fish fry at our favorite locale and it was as delicious as ever.

Saturday, I joined my mom, sister, and the kids for spring-time photographs. The photographer was a family friend who was running her own shop in town and she had a bunny named Oreo and little baby chicks. I got to hold one of the chicks for my niece to pet. I also got to see the new public library. It's incredible! Though I wasn't sure how to feel about the self-checkout counter. While at home, I saw my parents' TV Cue on the table where it turns found out Danny Pudi (Abed on Community) was a graduate of Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Dan Harmon (series creator of Community) is a Milwaukee, Wisconsin native. I grew up 40 miles from Milwaukee and considered Marquette for my undergrad so that made me feel pretty cool.

Saturday afternoon, I headed back for home as Nick purchased 8 pounds of corned beef and was making corned beef and cabbage for dinner. I ended up making a Reuben sandwich out of the fixings and it was delicious.

Today, my neighbor fired up his huge grill and we had a picnic. There were bacon-wrapped water chestnuts, bacon-wrapped Portabella mushrooms, buttered and grilled French bread, red grapes, carrots, chicken wings, BBQ chicken breasts, BBQ shrimp skewers, and bacon-wrapped Jalapeno peppers (Gross!). I sampled mostly everything, but the bread, mushrooms, grapes, and water chestnuts were my favorite things.

Another awesome part to the weekend was the announcement of the winners at the wicked_awards. Admittedly, I've been a little bummed about not winning anything for the Willowy Goodness Awards this year (though I've been trying not to vent online about it for fear that I'll come off sounding like a sore loser or something, which is not what I want to sound like at all.)

Anywho, I did win Best Angst Runner-up at the wicked_awards for my Riley/Willow friendship fic from 2010 ( Step Back From The Edge ). The judge's comments made me positively beam.

( Award and comments below the cut )

I also want to take time at the end of this post to congratulate the awesome folks on my flist who won awards as well. Congrats to snowpuppies, velvetwhip, shakensilence, dragonydreams, whichclothes, okdeanna, ash_carpenter, spikesredqueen, evangelin1202, and sueworld2003. I feel honored to be friends with such a talented group of folks.

I kissed Nick goodbye this morning as he headed off for his week-long trip to Lake Minocqua with his dad. (I can't go this year because of work and lack of funds). Of course, he was only allowed to go because he promised to buy me the cashew fudge that I've become addicted to ever since I went up there with him five years ago.

Then, I got in my car and made my way to my parents' house where I'll be staying until tomorrow morning.

It's been pretty low-key so far. Mom and I got Taco Bell for lunch and it was pretty nummy. Then, we went and saw the new Steve Carrell movie Crazy, Stupid, Love. I have to say that it was a solidly entertaining romantic comedy and I appreciated that they threw a few twists in there. I also appreciated Emma Stone. Damn, that gal is gorgeous! Plus, Ryan Gosling has gotten a lot cuter since he starred in Young Hercules. (Oh yes, I watched that show.)

Anywho, it's time for dinner so *hugs and love*

( 14. Which Starkid would you marry? )

( The Rest Of The Challenge )

I recognize that since I'm behind on the 30 day meme that I could play catch-up and knock off several days, but I'm choosing not to mostly on account of sheer laziness. I've had a busy, but relaxing, Memorial Day Weekend and I intend to keep up with the latter half of that now that Nick and I are home from my parents' house.

In terms of a weekend recap, we drove down to Mom and Dad's on Saturday. Mom made a beef roast and mashed potatoes for dinner and then topped it off with my birthday treat: Peach Upside-Down Cake. :D I got birthday presents from my sisters, since they were unable to join us for my birthday dinner. Katie gave me two foaming hand soaps, one Wallflower, and a candle from Bath and Body Works. All of which were in the scent: Peach Bellini. AH-MAZE-ING! My sister Mary got me a French Press coffee maker. I'm very excited to try that out. Saturday night, we all watched Easy A on Netflix Instant Streaming. It was my second time seeing it, but it was a first for everyone else. I think they liked it....

On Sunday, we had our annual Memorial Day picnic and spent the day eating burgers, brats, hot dogs, and ridiculously amazing desserts with our friends and family.

Today, Dad helped me take some pictures of our cat, Sirius Black, because I'm designing a photo book/children's book on Snapfish for my niece's birthday. Later tonight, Nick and I are going to watch more of The Wire Season Three.

Hope you all have a good Memorial Day!

( 6. Favorite photo of Darren? )

( The Rest of the Challenge )

Moving on to other news, I went to the zoo today with my mom, sister, and two year old niece, Lauren. We saw the lions, tigers, and bears. (Oh my!) We also saw the monkeys, polar bears, penguins, tapirs, giraffes, elephants, and kangaroos. I think the highlight of my day though was serving as Lauren's chaperone for the merry-go-round. She got so excited every time the horse went upwards. It was so cute.