Snogged: An Insatiable State of Mind

First, let me say, Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers on my flist! I hope you're having fabulous days and that your kids are treating you like the awesome ladies you are!

Second, let me recap my weekend.

1) Movies watched: Drones (produced and directed by Amber Benson and Adam Busch) - 3 stars -on Netflix, Love and Other Disasters (featuring the late, great Brittany Murphy) - 4 stars - on Netflix, the last hour of A Knight's Tale-4.5 stars--on TV.

2) Book finished: Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli (the first one was better, but this was still good.)

3) Book started: Forty-Four, Book 3 by Jools Sinclair (I continue to wonder where the suspense is in this series, considering the main character sees GHOSTS and has been kidnapped by a psychopathic doctor.)

4) TV watched: Parks and Recreation finale (&hearts), Vampire Diaries finale (Why God Why?)

5) Tasty food consumed: Noodles and Company Wisconsin Macaroni and Cheese, homemade Egg Strata, homemade Blackberry Pancakes, Hashbrowns, Bacon, Orange Slices, and Peanut Butter Candy Crunch ice cream.

6) Number of people scandalized: 1. I went to church with my mom today since she asked so nicely and the church she goes to is fairly liberal. However, there was a man asked me why I had moved to Portage. When I said to live with my boyfriend, he looks positively aghast. It amused me. :P

7) New favorite love song: "Crazier Than You" from the Addams Family OBC. My parents saw the show last weekend and my dad burned me a copy of the disc. I've listened to it six times already today and I'm determined to see it played at my dream wedding and/or wedding reception.

( The song is under this cut if you want to listen. Apparently the actors did some sort of live concert performance, which is cool. )

I had a marvelous time yesterday. :)

The restaurant was just as fun as I remember it being. I started the night with a martini called the Firefly, picked because a prominent ingredient is Midori Melon liqueur, which is my most favorite thing in the universe. Alicia told me to pick an appetizer so I went with a half order of the beer-battered cheese curds. For the meal, I had clam chowder, orange braised bourbon chicken, mashed potatoes, and a vegetable market medley (broccoli, carrots, and turnips.) (The leftover chicken and potatoes made an excellent lunch today. :P) Then, Alicia and I split a chocolate lave cake. It was so gosh darn amazing!

The show (Avenue Q) absolutely lived up to my expectations. All of the actors and actresses put their hearts and souls (and comedic chops) into their roles. My absolute favorites though were Kate Monster, the Bad Idea Bears, and Trekkie Monster. The actress playing Kate made the cutest facial expressions. The Bad Idea Bears (my friend, Naomi, included) had the cutest voices. And Trekkie was just funny as hell. While at the show, I ran into one of my old college (from undergrad) friends so that was a nice treat.

This morning, Alicia made an amazing breakfast. This included a Farmer's Casserole (hashbrowns, ham, eggs, cheese, green onions), cranberry-orange scones, and a berry medley (blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries.) I was also introduced to the show Tosh 2.0. I found that to be pretty funny. :)

So now I must ask the following question: why do I have to go back to work tomorrow? I really wish this weekend could last one or two more days....

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.

( Playing Catch-Up Again - Day 20 and 21 )

My friend Sabrina's baby shower was awesome yesterday!

I went over early because I wanted to assist Dionne with set-up. We were super proud of ouselves for getting the canopies up by ourselves (because, you know, ladies can do anything!) I also loved that Dionne decided on a Pirate theme for the shower since Sabrina loves pirates and the initials for her baby boy will be ARR.

I was pleasantly surprised to be chosen as the winner for the first game. We had to draw a skull and crossbones with a blindfold over our eyes. I've always considered myself a no-talent drawer but apparently, my skills improve when I can't see what I'm doing. *g* I also happened to be the only one who chose to use the whole page for my drawing. Everyone else did really small ones. My prize was a bottle of Mango Margarita Hand-Soap from Bath and Body Works. It smells awesome. :D

I think the funniest part of the shower was when Dionne brought out a sword and a skull cane and said: "All right, ladies, who's feeling athletic?" She wanted to do a Dizzy Bat contest (where you put your head down on the item, spin around really fast, and then run across the yard.) We all opted out though as it was too hot and we'd just eaten cake.

When I got home, Nick and I picked up a Gourmet Vegetarian pizza (zucchini, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatos, artichoke hearts, spinach, cheese, and a creamy garlic sauce) from Papa Murphy's. It was a great way to end the day, plus I have leftovers for lunch. WOO!

On a final note, only three more days until I start at the Pauquette Center and only two more weeks until I get to go to IOWA!

1) My Jonathan Coulton Radio Station has recently introduced me to the amusingly funny, Carla Ulbrich. Title of this post comes from her song: "What If Your Girlfriend Was Gone?" which has been bouncing through my head all day.

2) The Steak Teriyaki at Chi-Pan (Chinese/Japanese resturant a few blocks from my house) is the most amazing think I've ever tasted. Seriously. $6.25 for something that moist and delicious? Hello heaven!

3) The only thing we have to eat in the house right now are leftovers. I have a suspicion Nick's going to pout when I tell him I'm not going grocery shopping until the weekend. I know we'll manage though and I know he'll suck it up. :D

4) I heard from Loki last night. He's moving back to Wisconsin! WOO!

5) ( Day 16 - Someone that’s not in your state/country )

ETA: Found the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoOXenYRgqQ&feature=related

I much prefer the option of "Whatever I Like" so I'm going to go with that.

First, a pimp:
1/ The himym_awards are open for nominations. This is your chance to get your favorite writers recognized for the work they do. Make sure to read the rules and check the categories before nominating.

Second, a video (since I didn't do this before):



This is Tally. Tally plays the ukulele. This is her singing from the POV of Ted's daughter in 2030. I pretty much adore it for all the snark and cuteness it offers.

--

I'm a bit sad to be finished with this meme since so many of us we're doing it and it means today's the last day we'll all be updating with our answers. That said, I already have another 30 day meme on my to-do list called: The 30 Days of Female Awesome. I think I'm going to start it in November just to keep within the month time frame.

Anyways, for those who are curious, the kitty ears went over well. I was the only who dressed up but the reactions were amusing enough. I was particularly fond of the guy who offered to draw whiskers on my face with a Sharpie (I declined) and one of the top-level guys meowed at me so that was cool.

In food news, I made a Apple Caramel Cake for the party tonight and I'm looking forward to it. I'm curious to see what weird movies are in store for me this evening. My goal is to a write-up/review type thing in honor of Halloween tomorrow.

But now I'm off to go wake up the boy.

Catch ya on the flip side!