Great weekend for great music

I haven't posted anything in a few days. Woops. Busy weekend. And I had a lot of homework to do on Sunday, and I wasn't feeling well. My busy weekend was also a pretty good one though.

Chris and I went to see The Campaign Friday night. The movie started at 11:50 or something ridiculously late. It was pretty good though. On Saturday, I sat around most of the morning doing laundry and a whole lot of nothing. Seriously, I could have been doing homework, and probably should have. But I didn't. Oh well. Then my dad and I went to see my Uncle Jay and look at cars (I hope to be getting something new in the near-ish future) and so my dad could buy cigars. After that, we stopped by my grandma and grandpa's house. Grandpa was already in his chair for his "afternoon nap" but we bugged him anyway. Then we took Grandma to lunch because unlike Grandpa who eats lunch at 10:30am, she hadn't had lunch yet.

So the three of us went to Henke's Tavern in Florissant for some deliciously greasy hamburgers and fries (did I mention I didn't eat very healthy this weekend?). Grandma and I had a couple beers and they tasted pretty darn good. That's one of my favorite places to go when I'm in town. We know everyone who works there, and most of the people that go there and it's always fun. Plus it's nice to get a delicious cheeseburger and cheese fries now and then. :)

Later that evening, Chris and I went to Olive Garden for dinner. Lucky for us, we got sat near a table of teenagers going to homecoming. Oh boy. We got stiffed on breadsticks because those kids ate a ton of them because apparently none of them have jobs to pay for their own shit. Also, once they got their checks, they took their bills to their mommies sitting at another table so that their moms could pay for their dinner. Seriously. When I  was in high school, if I needed money for something like that, they'd give me a $20 and I was on my merry little way. Kids these days. Also, holy short dresses batman! Pretty sure most of those girls' dresses barely covered their hoohas. Sheesh.

Anyhoo, after dinner we went out to Pop's to see Killer Me, Killer You (and some other bands). The first band was not so great. Pretty sure it was City Avenue, and they just sounded a little off-key at times and stuff. Apparently they are on Spotify though, and so I'm guessing they probably sound better recorded than live. Next up was Five Fold. I couldn't make up my mind about them. Some of their stuff was really good, and others were just okay. They'd probably be one of those bands where I'd buy a song or two that I liked, but wouldn't pay for the entire album.

Finally, Killer Me Killer You came on and they were spectacular as always. And they played their cover of "Take Me Home Tonight" which I'm pretty sure everyone loves. They've played it at every show I've been to. They're fantastic live and possibly one of my new favorite bands.

After they were done, we left. Partly because we were exhausted and partly because I'm not a huge Brook Royal fan. The drive home SUCKED. They're doing some serious road construction on 70 in TWO different places. So almost immediately after we got onto 70, we were at a dead stop. They had the freaking highway down to ONE LANE for construction. Once we got out of that mess, everything was fine, until we got to St. Charles. They're in the process of getting the bridge ready for construction which means screwing up all the lanes and whatnot. So that took forever as well. Yuck.

Sunday morning Chris's mom made us chocolate chip pancakes. They were delicious. I also had some strawberry banana Chobani (that was probably the healthiest thing I had all weekend). After that, I went home (felt like crap, as usual) and laid in bed all day to finish reading The Scarlet Letter. It was better than I remember. I'm sure I'm one of very few who love that book, but I do! It's so fantastic. Now I just need to figure out a topic for my paper . . .

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend! More later (maybe)!

PS if you're in St. Louis and wanna go to the Cards game against the Astros tonight, you totally should. It's Johnny Venus night! Check out this video and go go go!

Jimmy John's: I will love you forever.

Here we are again. Lunchtime. And mine was delicious. Turkey Tom lettuce wrap from Jimmy John's. And a pickle. Yes, a whole pickle. I had them cut it into fourths though to avoid awkward stares from my interns. I am also considering a candy bar later. Because that just sounds good.

If you guessed that I didn't work out last night, you guessed right. I did, however, get homework done. Not all of it, but a significant chunk of it. And then I fell asleep with a terrible headache. Shocking, I know. I should probably see a doctor. Eventually. And I had 3 oreos while waiting for Chris to get there so we could get dinner. I was hungry. We got Applebee's--half-price appetizers! Unfortunately my cheese quesadilla was filled with bacon instead of pico. I was extremely disappointed. Not that I hate bacon. Bacon is good. I don't like it when it just shows up in my quesadilla unexpectedly though. Good thing I'm not a vegetarian or anything.

After dinner we watched The Fox and the Hound. I forgot how much I love/hate that movie. Seriously, it is so adorable and horribly sad all at once. Disney can be so cruel. Although I seem to have become a major cryer lately, and I cry during just about every movie I watch. Weird. I have found that the cure to this is chocolate. Or ice cream. Or both.

Speaking of Disney, Finding Nemo in 3-D is now in theaters!!!!! I have been waiting for this for so long! Chris and I are going to see it on Tuesday night (and hope there aren't a lot of obnoxious kids there). They should have separate theaters-- one for people with kids going to watch Disney movies, and another for adults that are still kids themselves, thus they don't want to listen to a ton of whiney children who can't appreciate the cinematic perfection that is Pixar. Kids these days. Ugh.

After work today I'll probably be getting some Starbucks because I didn't sleep one bit last night, and then I'll be driving to St. Louis. Gotta get laundry and homework done and we're going to see Killer Me Killer You at Pop's tomorrow night. Love them!

Happy, happy Friday! :)

Presentation Sucked. Ice Cream Made it Better.

Another lunchtime post. I had Imo's again. It was delicious. Obviously, I didn't get around to another post last night. Things got busy. But let's just say my presentation was not so awesome. Actually, it just really sucked. Whatever. Thank God I'm good at writing papers. We did get out of class almost an hour early, so that was nice. I went home, not feeling well--not sure if I was sick or just completely embarrassed. Then Kirsten picks me up to go to Target with her. Nothing good can come of me going to Target all depressed and sad. It makes me buy things to make me feel better. I didn't actually buy anything other than stuff I actually needed, like vitamins and whatnot. But still, hadn't planned on spending any money. Oh well.

For those of you who didn't know, yesterday was National Chocolate Milkshake Day. If you're starting to think the only healthy thing I had yesterday was an apple, then congratulations. You are correct. I was a rebel and didn't get a chocolate shake. I did get ice cream though. We stopped at Dairy Queen on our way home and I got a mini snickers blizzard. Those things are absolutely adorable. And they even give you a mini spoon! It was delicious. And, again, made me feel a little better about myself after I totally failed at that presentation. Presentations just aren't my thing.

I was awake at 6 this morning. Sneezing, coughing, etc. Yay allergies. After all that nonsense, and about another half hour of sleep, I had a headache. I'm feeling a little better now, but my nose is still stuffy. I hate that. Pretty sure my nose always feels this way. So annoying. I do plan on doing a quick workout after work (assuming I don't start feeling worse before then). Then I will get some homework done, so I don't have as much to do over the weekend. And I might take a nap. Because that sounds lovely and cozy. Seriously, I think I'd give my left arm to be able to go home right now and sleep for a few hours. I miss my bed :(

Work is still busy. I'm actually getting quite a lot done today though, so that's a good feeling. And I'm getting good at delegating stuff to my interns. I have to be careful about what I give them though. And I seem to delegate more projects to the girls than the boys. Maybe I'm biased, but generally girls are cleaner/neater/have better handwriting/etc., etc. And they're usually better at following directions.

Again, possibly another post later tonight. No promises though. But maybe if I actually workout today then I'll write a little something about it.

Lunchtime Special

Leftover Imo's! All on a nice little plate, thanks to my boyfriend. He's so thoughtful :) And I've totally been slacking on posts lately. My apologies. Work has been crazy busy and I've had a lot of homework to do, especially to get ready for my presentation tonight on Nathaniel Hawthorne (wish me luck!) which will not be as humorous as I had hoped because I can't find the video I wanted to use.

I've also slacked in the exercise department too. There just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day, and by the time I get all my other work done, I'm exhausted. As far as eating goes . . . well I haven't had much of an appetite lately, so I guess I'm eating fairly healthy. Minus the Imo's from last night, and a snickers bar.

I have a plan though. Sort of. Ok, I don't have a plan at all. But I have thoughts that somehow work themselves into plans sometimes . . . Anyway. I am going to try to go for a run or two this weekend since I don't have a lot going on, and I don't have quite as much homework for next week. I also plan to go grocery shopping and get some more Chobani and some veggies and milk. I seem to be running out of milk fast lately. Which sucks because I know if I buy a whole gallon of milk, I won't use it all and it will go bad. I had planned on cooking my spaghetti squash on Sunday. That didn't happen. I alternated between napping and doing homework all day. I wasn't feeling too good.

Random thoughts for the day: There are some really strange people on this campus. Does anyone else notice that smell when people walk in after being outside for a while when it's hot/warmish? I hate that smell. I haven't gotten to listen to Yellowcard's new album in its entirety, but the few songs I have listened to are pretty good. Thanks to my good friend Adam for always supplying me with good music :)

Possibly a post later tonight after my class--especially if I tank my presentation . . .

Procrastination

Hello, it's been a while. And it's been another rough week. First of all, my primary reason for lack of posts this week is the amount of homework. I have a presentation due on Wednesday on Nathaniel Hawthorne. While it isn't a terribly difficult assignment, it is time-consuming. Mainly because I'm a good, responsible little grad student and I'm writing down every single website/book I find any sort of information in. I think I have most of the information I need. I just need to put it all together in a nice little presentation. One that looks nice, is informative, and as I always strive to be, somewhat clever. The worst part of all this will be leading the class discussion afterward by asking questions, acting all teacher-like, blah blah blah. Yuck. Oh, and I have to have at least half of the book read by Wednesday as well.

I'm a procrastinator at heart, so here I am. Really, I just got the urge to do some writing. I wrote a tiny little poem which isn't much of anything significant currently. But eventually I'll get around to revisions. I had what I thought might be a good idea for a story earlier today--or maybe it was last night--but it's gone now. I have no idea what it was. I've been reading war stories and poetry all week for an anthology we're doing and that's all that's in my head lately. I know nothing of war or military life, nor am I ambitious enough to do any research, to write about it.

Work has been crazy. I've had a ton of homework, which is what I'll be spending most of my weekend getting done. To top it all off, I locked my keys in my car Wednesday night after class. First time that's every happened to me. And of course, I was two hours away from my spare key. No bueno. I called the police because apparently somewhere in the world they actually help people with these sorts of things. As I may or may not have mentioned before, the police in this town are completely and utterly useless. The guy said they no longer had the "tools" to help with such things. But he offered to call me tow truck, so that's super helpful! Not. Pretty sure if I was capable of calling the police, I'm more than capable of calling myself a tow truck. Idiots.

Next plan was a locksmith. The one that is supposedly "24 hours" never answered. I called twice. Nothing. So I called the only other locksmith I could find online. He said he could do it, but it would cost $55. Okay, not bad. Except he wouldn't take a credit card or a check. He said he'd follow me to an ATM to get cash. Well since I still don't have my new debit card, that's not a possibility. Next plan of action: call Rhyen. This lady knows much more about cars than most guys I know, so I figured if anyone knew how to break into a car, it'd be her. Thankfully, she came through and showed up with all the "supplies" needed. Unfortunately (fortunately?) the seals on my car are super tight (the "that's what he/she said jokes were numerous), which made it hard to get in (that's what he said).

Long story short, it took a total of 7 people to finally get my car unlocked. It was well after midnight. I had a terrible migraine. I didn't get to bed until about 1:30. Lessons learned: Most of my neighbors are dicks. For all they knew we were just breaking into someone's car. We did meet one neighbor and his friend who actually checked to see if we needed help. They weren't much help, but they did provide some comic relief (including, but not limited to, that's what she said jokes). The seals on my doors/windows are tight. So happy to know my car's not a slut. Most important lesson of all: make sure your spare key isn't two hours away.

Seriously though, this is the first time it's ever happened. But people love to make you feel like a total idiot for it--like they've never done it. I was a little hysterical for a while, given all my car troubles in the past month. Luckily Kirsten and Rhyen were there to help and keep me sort of sane, and kept me from breaking the window with a hammer :)

Reconnect

The past couple days have kind of sucked as far as exercise goes. I spent my day off yesterday doing homework. A lot of homework. By the time I had gotten most of it done, I felt like crap. So I figured I'd wait until today to go for a run since it's my usual run day anyway. Well, I didn't do that either. I've had a headache most of the day along with a stomach ache and back pain. Rather than going for a run after work, I went to bed instead.

My dinner was far from healthy. I had planned to cook a spaghetti squash. I was not up for cooking at all tonight though. So I had pizza rolls instead. And oreos for dessert. I'm officially out of milk now. I had a really healthy lunch today though . . . at 3:30 this afternoon. I had training during the time I normally eat my lunch. Lunch was a banana, an apple, and leftover zucchini lasagna. Not bad reheated. I'm not sure if the original recipe says to cut the skin off the zucchini or not, but I'm thinking we should have. It was kind of tough, and a little sharp feeling too. Also, I'm not sure if it says to deseed them or not, but I'm we probably should have done that too. Not that it's a big deal and the seeds aren't edible. They just looked kind of weird and had a weird texture and all that. They would definitely be better roasted in the oven like pumpkin seeds. Glad it's about that time of year! Can't wait to make those.

Since I haven't worked out since last week technically, my plan is to try to squeeze in some form of a workout in before my class tomorrow night. I'm going to try to head over to the gym. I know on my "off days" I need to be strength training and cross training and stuff, but I really, really hate doing that stuff. I'm not a fan of lifting weights, or doing the elliptical machine, or riding a stationary bike, etc. I would rather be running. Or just walking. Walking counts as cross training, right?

The rest of my night will be spent doing research/making a presentation on Nathaniel Hawthorne for my class next Wednesday night. I should probably start re-reading The Scarlet Letter as well. I have to write a paper on it in a couple weeks. Trying to decide what topics/issues I want to write about. In my spare time (or just when I get bored with doing homework) I'm going to try to start working on writing some poetry, and maybe give fiction a shot. Maybe. Writing stories is hard. I need to reconnect with my childhood imagination and come up with some good ideas. What's the best way to do that? Eat dinosaur chicken nuggets and M&M sundaes from Doozles? Maybe not. But it's worth a try :)

Zucchini Lasagna

Gigantic zucchini

Tonight, Kirsten and I attempted Zucchini Lasagna (recipe from http://joandsue.blogspot.ca/2012/06/zucchini-lasagna.html). We made a  few modifications of our own. First problem: oversized zucchini. It was extremely difficult to cut. So rather than cutting it into 1/8 strips, we just sliced the monster in to rounds instead. We also didn't add all the veggies from their recipe to the meat sauce.

Zucchini fresh out of the oven

Instead, we used spinach, broccoli, onions, and carrots. So the meat sauce consisted of: Prego meat sauce, ground turkey, and all of those yummy veggies. We cooked the zucchini slices in the oven and mixed all the veggies, meat, and sauce, and made the cheese mix of cottage and parmesan cheese. It took forever to get everything ready. And once it was all assembled, it had to bake for 50 minutes. So long. The end result was not necessarily the prettiest thing in the world, but it tasted fantastic. I'm really enjoying finding new ways to incorporate vegetables into my meals. Even if I had just made regular spaghetti or something, I really like the idea of adding all of those veggies to the sauce.

Meat/veggie sauce

Cottage and parmesan cheese

Tomorrow I plan on making a spaghetti squash, although I'm not sure what kind of sauce I'll use since I used my last jar of pre go on the lasagna tonight. I'm also learning to love ground turkey, and I'm getting pretty good at cooking it (not that it's all that different from ground beef, but remember I'm a terrible cook.

Back to the lasagna. It was delicious (although I'm pretty sure my mom could do a way better job lol). The prep/cook time was a little bit too long for me. And there was an excessive amount of dishes. Although I think now that I know what I'm doing, it might help cut down on prep time a tad. I can only hope.

The end result: delicious

How was everyone's weekend? Mine was really good. I spent Friday night with my parents eating White Castle and popcorn and watching Lifetime movies. Saturday I went to the Apple store and walked out with my brand new Macbook Air! I was so happy! I also found a really cute dress to wear to the wedding Chris and I are going to in October. Can't wait to buy it! My lack of a debit card is making things quite difficult. Saturday night I was pretty lame. I did homework, watched Toy Story, and then went to bed. Sunday my mom made delicious biscuits and gravy for breakfast. I went to dinner at Olive Garden with Kirsten and a few of our friends who were in town and then we watched The Princess and the Frog and then 10 Things I Hate About You. It was a pretty good night and a really good weekend. I hope you all had one just as good, or better :)