My blog post is kind of late tonight, but still on time for NaBloPoMo. You see, I'm usually in bed by 8-9pm because J wakes up early. This does not mean that I get up with him - I just need more sleep than he does so I go to bed when he does and wake up when Miss Monkey does. It's a win-win for everyone.
Anyways, back to my topic tonight.
The reason I'm up late tonight is because today is my official day of working at home. I have been sort of leading up to this day, as my boss recently became employed (while still retaining his self-employed title). This means it has been little ol' me in the office by myself. With no heat. In the middle of winter. In a huge historic building. See why I'm working from home now?
This means that two glorious days a week, Miss Monkey goes to daycare and I get to bask in being home alone without having to worry about tip-toeing around during nap time. This is going to reveal my OCD side a little bit, but one of the best parts of my day is straightening up the house and basking in its cleanliness all day. When I go from room to room, it will be exactly the way I left it. No toys, no food, no sippy cups...
.. and I'm rambling again. I get so excited about a clean house!
To celebrate, I did what any hard working individual should do: I watched some TV shows I had stored on Hulu (by myself!) and took a nice needed nap. That is, until the 4.1 earthquake that rocked the Bay Area today woke me up. Maybe it was a sign that I should not have been napping during a work day? Hey - I'm still sick and it was the first time I got sick "me time" all week.
I did get a majority of the work done in the afternoon, but then needed to finish tonight after Miss Monkey went to bed. But then I got distracted by the rest of my TV shows, so of course I finished at a snail's pace.
Which leads me back to why I'm writing this blog post so close to deadline. But at least it's getting written and it feels so good to reflect on the happiness (despite talking about work) of my day.
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♥ Best Moments of the Day ♥
- Working at home! I am so lucky. :)
- Getting to take a nap, despite the earthquake waking me up. Luckily it wasn't a big one and J wasn't working at a dangerous job site today.
- Discovering a new TV series called Mercy. I'm not quite sure whether I like it or not, but it is starting to grow on me. I'm sure I don't need another TV series to get addicted to, but now that I'm staying up late working, I'm going to need some sort of company.
- Miss Monkey was so cute before bed. Not did I let her stay up until Toy Story was over at 8:30pm (she is usually in bed by 7:30pm lately), but during the rolling credits she stood up and started dancing. It was so cute that she was so tired, but still so happy. I love it when she's in a good mood. And she even went to bed without a fuss (like she usually does).
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Tomorrow is J and I's last non-married anniversary of our first date! Still need to get him a little something.
Showing posts with label miss monkey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label miss monkey. Show all posts
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Buy One, Get What?
I am pretty lucky that not only is my future mother-in-law into photography, but one of my close friends is too. It's like my kid has her own personal paparazzi sometimes. Because of this, I am blessed with a ton of awesome photos of my kid and all our friends (but let's be honest - they're mostly of my adorable daughter).
My photography friend recently had some of her photos printed for her portfolio and gave me some of the extras ones of Miss Monkey. She had two sizes, and I (stupidly) chose the 5x7s. I loved how they looked in the 5x7, but did not think about the time and effort it would take to find a photo collage frame for 9 5x7 photos.
I looked at all my usual places - nothing. I looked at Amazon.com - nothing. They had some adorable (and reasonably priced!) ones for 4x6s, but I couldn't find anything I liked for 5x7s.
I finally looked at the web site for Michael's and found the perfect frame I was looking for! The web site mentioned that it was a custom order frame, so I was slightly dreading finding out the price. However, it was the only frame that not only looked decent, but was exactly what I was looking for.
So Miss Monkey and I went to Michael's today to see how much I was going to have to shell out for this frame, and instead of having to "custom order" it from the framing counter, I found a ton of them on the shelves with all the regular frames. Not only were there a ton of them, but they were only $39.99! That is dirt cheap in the land of large frames. I must have turned it over and over again for several minutes trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with it.
After determining that there was no sane reason why it was so cheap, I took it up to the counter and started to check out. The cashier scanned the frame and looked surprised for a minute. I was expecting her to tell me that the wrong price tag was on it, but instead she informed me that there was a buy one, get one sale on that particular item and that I should go back and grab another one!
I think we both looked at each other in disbelief and shock.
The shock quickly wore off and I grabbed Miss Monkey out of the cart and practically ran back to the framing department where I quickly picked out an identical one and ran back to the front so I could make it out of the store before they discovered their computer made some sort of mistake. One Miss Monkey and I were out in the car, I took a deep breath and started doing my happy bargain dance. Believe me - the happy bargain dance is as lame as it sounds. Picture the cabbage patch and disco all rolled into one.
I've got one of the frames fill and despite breaking one of the panes of glass (which seems to ALWAYS happen to me! Luckily this one is only 5x7 and not custom dimensions, so it'll be easy to replace.), the frame turned out gorgeous.
Now I just need to find a theme of 9 more photos to fill my other free frame. It's going to be a long night.
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♥ Best Moments of the Day ♥
- I have enough time to do a Best Moments of the Day section! I totally forgot about it last night, and the night before the best moment of my day was climbing into bed after suffering through a stuffy head.
- Buy one, get one deal on the picture frame! I am SUPER stoked about that. Not sure I mentioned it enough.
- Miss Monkey was a very good girl when we were running errands for most of the day. It's nice now that she's getting older and I'm able to distract her a lot more. Or maybe I'm just better at planning which errands to do before nap and which ones to do after nap.
- Phở for dinner! J picked up the yummy Vietnamese noodle soup that we oh-so-love for dinner, especially when we're sick. I'm so lucky to live in a place where there is practically a phở restaurant on every other corner.
- I am doing awesome on my NaBloPoMo! I need to stop leaving it until the last minute, though, so maybe I can start including some pictures.
My photography friend recently had some of her photos printed for her portfolio and gave me some of the extras ones of Miss Monkey. She had two sizes, and I (stupidly) chose the 5x7s. I loved how they looked in the 5x7, but did not think about the time and effort it would take to find a photo collage frame for 9 5x7 photos.
I looked at all my usual places - nothing. I looked at Amazon.com - nothing. They had some adorable (and reasonably priced!) ones for 4x6s, but I couldn't find anything I liked for 5x7s.
I finally looked at the web site for Michael's and found the perfect frame I was looking for! The web site mentioned that it was a custom order frame, so I was slightly dreading finding out the price. However, it was the only frame that not only looked decent, but was exactly what I was looking for.
So Miss Monkey and I went to Michael's today to see how much I was going to have to shell out for this frame, and instead of having to "custom order" it from the framing counter, I found a ton of them on the shelves with all the regular frames. Not only were there a ton of them, but they were only $39.99! That is dirt cheap in the land of large frames. I must have turned it over and over again for several minutes trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with it.
After determining that there was no sane reason why it was so cheap, I took it up to the counter and started to check out. The cashier scanned the frame and looked surprised for a minute. I was expecting her to tell me that the wrong price tag was on it, but instead she informed me that there was a buy one, get one sale on that particular item and that I should go back and grab another one!
I think we both looked at each other in disbelief and shock.
The shock quickly wore off and I grabbed Miss Monkey out of the cart and practically ran back to the framing department where I quickly picked out an identical one and ran back to the front so I could make it out of the store before they discovered their computer made some sort of mistake. One Miss Monkey and I were out in the car, I took a deep breath and started doing my happy bargain dance. Believe me - the happy bargain dance is as lame as it sounds. Picture the cabbage patch and disco all rolled into one.
I've got one of the frames fill and despite breaking one of the panes of glass (which seems to ALWAYS happen to me! Luckily this one is only 5x7 and not custom dimensions, so it'll be easy to replace.), the frame turned out gorgeous.
Now I just need to find a theme of 9 more photos to fill my other free frame. It's going to be a long night.
-----------------------------
♥ Best Moments of the Day ♥
- I have enough time to do a Best Moments of the Day section! I totally forgot about it last night, and the night before the best moment of my day was climbing into bed after suffering through a stuffy head.
- Buy one, get one deal on the picture frame! I am SUPER stoked about that. Not sure I mentioned it enough.
- Miss Monkey was a very good girl when we were running errands for most of the day. It's nice now that she's getting older and I'm able to distract her a lot more. Or maybe I'm just better at planning which errands to do before nap and which ones to do after nap.
- Phở for dinner! J picked up the yummy Vietnamese noodle soup that we oh-so-love for dinner, especially when we're sick. I'm so lucky to live in a place where there is practically a phở restaurant on every other corner.
- I am doing awesome on my NaBloPoMo! I need to stop leaving it until the last minute, though, so maybe I can start including some pictures.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Social Italian Butterflies
I am so lucky to be marrying someone who loves having friends over to our house as much as I do. We are both very social people and with Miss Monkey running around, it's so easy and enjoyable to have our friends come over to hang out at our house. Sure, there is usually a huge mess the next day when we wake up, but neither of us complain and we always seemed to get it cleaned up first thing.
Tonight is no exception as we decided to host a night of yummy Italian food with two of our closest friends. On the menu was a delicious Pizza Quattro Stagioni (WeightWatchers.com recipe) and some modified Cannolis from a family recipe.
The pizza, which included dough made from scratch, came out perfect. We topped the pizza with some canned Italian tomatoes, basil, oregano, parsley, mushrooms, prosciutto, and artichokes. I had never cooked with prosciutto before (not sure how as most of my meals are Italian for my Italian fiance), but I HIGHLY recommend it. It was so delicious and a great alternative for ham. I wish we had saved some extra so we could use it in an omelet tomorrow morning.
As for the cannolis, the hunt for the right recipe continues. The history of these cannolis stems from J's grandmas. It has been said that they make the best cannolis ever. Unfortunately, the recipe was either lost or never written down because poor J's aunt has been trying to recreate it ever since. I never got the pleasure of having any of J's grandma's cannolis, but it isn't Christmas without the delicious cannolis that J's aunt makes.
A couple months ago, I discovered a strawberry rhubarb tart recipe that J has fallen in love with. One day I must have hurried through the recipe because I accidentally added too much of each ingredient. Oops. The result did not taste like the tart, but did not taste bad either. J thought the pastry part tasted like what he remembers from his grandmothers' cannoli recipe so we tried duplicating the mistake in the recipe tonight.
The result? Cannoli fail.
We'll try again tomorrow as his aunt left us a bunch of the cannoli filling and we'd like to use it before it goes bad. Hopefully tomorrow's batch comes out a little better.
-----------------------------
♥ Best Moments of the Day ♥
- Getting to run errands by myself! J watched Miss Monkey while I ran to the craft and grocery stores. I discovered that I spend way less money when I'm trying to keep Miss Monkey entertained, and seem to be in and out quicker too. Who'd have thought she'd be a money saver?
- Watching part of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. That movie is too cute and Miss Monkey seemed to love it! Unfortunately I was running around the house doing chores so I didn't get to sit and watch it, but J and I may watch it during the kid's nap time if we don't see it sooner.
- Getting this post done 15 minutes before midnight, still allowing it to count for January 2nd's post. Go NaBloPoMo!
Tonight is no exception as we decided to host a night of yummy Italian food with two of our closest friends. On the menu was a delicious Pizza Quattro Stagioni (WeightWatchers.com recipe) and some modified Cannolis from a family recipe.
The pizza, which included dough made from scratch, came out perfect. We topped the pizza with some canned Italian tomatoes, basil, oregano, parsley, mushrooms, prosciutto, and artichokes. I had never cooked with prosciutto before (not sure how as most of my meals are Italian for my Italian fiance), but I HIGHLY recommend it. It was so delicious and a great alternative for ham. I wish we had saved some extra so we could use it in an omelet tomorrow morning.
As for the cannolis, the hunt for the right recipe continues. The history of these cannolis stems from J's grandmas. It has been said that they make the best cannolis ever. Unfortunately, the recipe was either lost or never written down because poor J's aunt has been trying to recreate it ever since. I never got the pleasure of having any of J's grandma's cannolis, but it isn't Christmas without the delicious cannolis that J's aunt makes.
A couple months ago, I discovered a strawberry rhubarb tart recipe that J has fallen in love with. One day I must have hurried through the recipe because I accidentally added too much of each ingredient. Oops. The result did not taste like the tart, but did not taste bad either. J thought the pastry part tasted like what he remembers from his grandmothers' cannoli recipe so we tried duplicating the mistake in the recipe tonight.
The result? Cannoli fail.
We'll try again tomorrow as his aunt left us a bunch of the cannoli filling and we'd like to use it before it goes bad. Hopefully tomorrow's batch comes out a little better.
-----------------------------
♥ Best Moments of the Day ♥
- Getting to run errands by myself! J watched Miss Monkey while I ran to the craft and grocery stores. I discovered that I spend way less money when I'm trying to keep Miss Monkey entertained, and seem to be in and out quicker too. Who'd have thought she'd be a money saver?
- Watching part of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. That movie is too cute and Miss Monkey seemed to love it! Unfortunately I was running around the house doing chores so I didn't get to sit and watch it, but J and I may watch it during the kid's nap time if we don't see it sooner.
- Getting this post done 15 minutes before midnight, still allowing it to count for January 2nd's post. Go NaBloPoMo!
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