You know you go to Starbucks too often when...

...you get personal invitations to attend their training classes!

Did you know that there are different levels of barista? I didn't, until this morning. Apparently, there are your basic green apron kind and then the 'coffee expert' kind that wear black aprons.

So I popped in to Starbucks while I was out avoiding cleaning my house running some very important errands. To say that I am a regular there would be an understatement....they all know that I work from home, write a local blog, and even that Nate is away for the week. Don't judge.

Anyway, my favorite barista, Sarah says to me, 'I have something for you and I know it's kind of weird but I'm going to give it to you anyway'.

I am fairly certain that my face lit up like a five-year-old's on Christmas Day. What can I say, I'm easy like that.

It was an invitation to her Coffee Master seminar to qualify for her black apron.

I'm not sure whether to be super excited or embarrassed that I am there so often I now get invited to training nights.

Wonder if there's free coffee at this shindig? Keeping fingers crossed....

Someone please hold me back!

Guess what just popped up in my inbox? Good Lord, please save me from myself.



Their new spring collection is in and I was in L.O.V.E when I was there last weekend but I knew Nate was right outside, so I showed incredible restraint and just walked away with two sale items. However today, Nate is half a world away and I have an entire Saturday to myself...when the husband's away, the wife will pay.....

I've developed kind of a thing for prints lately, which is totally out of the norm for me - I am normally a solids kind of gal. Who could resist this springy poppy skirt, though? And that watercolor flowered dress will be mine before the spring is over; it's not a matter of if but when (and maybe a little bit of how much thrown in).

I need another coat like I need a hole in my head, but how can you resist this adorable trench coat? I am not much for the recent plaid trend, but I am mad for this white and black beauty. And since a return to an office seems to be in the cards for me, I could definitely use a power color like red in my work wardrobe.

See, honey, I need this stuff! It's for the job.

If you need me, I'll be in the kitchen freezing my credit cards in the ice cube trays....

Sound off

If I hear one more person say I don't need to worry about my job situation because I'm extremely 'hireable', I think I will scream.

I know they are just trying to be reassuring but it is not helping. I have been looking high and low for six weeks now - revising my resume, writing the best cover damn cover letter ever, spending hours on the internet scouring for jobs, sending out literally dozens of resumes, networking my little fanny off and not a single, flipping phone call. Not even a wrong number.

My head knows that I am blessed because we are fine financially without my income. Things could definitely be worse. But my ego is not too fond of the idea of being labeled 'unemployed', even for a short period of time. I take a lot of pride in the things I have accomplished and where I've managed to get in my five short years with my company. It is hard to imagine starting over somewhere else and being a nobody again.

Okay, rant over.

Sparks will fly again!

{image via perezhilton.com}

Ooooh! Look who's back on Gossip Girl! The deliciously devilish Georgina Sparks! I'm giddy as a high school girl waiting for the new episodes to start next Monday!

What's up, Sugarpop?

Sadly, no new episode of LOST tonight. WTH?

Don't they know us LOSTies are dying to know what happens now that Sawyer has seen Kate for the first time in three years?

Since the execs at ABC are torturing us with an extra weeks wait, fill the hole in your Wednesday night line up with this fun little game.

Happy birthday, Barbie!

Today she turns 50, but I swear she doesn't look a day over 25!

Say what you will about the unrealistic expectations set by her, ahem, assets....I loved Barbie as a little girl and I am none the worse for wear. I spent many blissful hours making up elaborate scenarios for my Barbies to act out. My most vivid Christmas memory is of the year my sister and I got the magnificent three story Barbie Dream House, complete with spiral staircase and elevator. My Barbie lived the glamorous life - a hunky GI Joe husband, a limo, a pool, a stable and the largest Barbie clothing collection known to mankind.

On second thought, maybe Nate does have Barbie to blame for my shopaholic ways....

But, Honey, it's for charity...

I know I'm supposed to be on shopping hiatus, Honey, but this one is for charity. You wouldn't want to deprive the poor children now, would you? Think Nate will buy that?


Join me this weekend (March 12-15) in GAP's Give and Get charity promotion. You shop at any of the GAP family of stores (GAP, GAPkids, Banana Republic, Old Navy) and get 30% off of your in-store purchase. In turn, GAP will give 5% of your total purchase amount to the charity of my choice, The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Do your part for the economy and help fund the fight against blood cancers (and get some totally cute stuff for yourself while you're at it!).

Click here to print my friends and family coupon!

Perfect Day

As usual, the weekend flew by way too fast and a new work week has arrived. I'd like to say that I'm not complaining because I'm just happy to get a paycheck, but that would be a bald faced lie - I am not at all pleased to see a new work week come, paycheck be damned.

We had an unprecedented Saturday here - neither one of us worked the whole entire day! Woohoo! I am often a Work Widow on Saturday mornings. Nate gets up super early, even on the weekends, and more often than not I wake up to find him gone, getting in a few extra hours in the lab. And my work has taken up more than a weekend or two over the last several weeks. Needless to say our 'To Do' list is a mile long, the house is a disaster and neither of us has been too pleasant to be around. So with Nate's business trip starting on Sunday, we decided to play hooky all day Saturday - no work, no cleaning, no laundry. Just the two of us, doing whatever tickled our fancy.

Numero uno on my list? Sleeping in! Which I did like a champ until 10 o'clock, while Nate went for a seven-mile run at the local park as training for the torture Mini Marathon he's signed up for in May.

We had plans to meet friends for lunch at a place that wasn't too far from the mall - how very convenient (at least for those of us who enjoy malls)! After much cajoling, I finally convinced Nate to head out just a tiny bit early and let me do a little shopping. I have been keeping my shopping in check for the last six weeks, so I was practically salivating at the thought of going to the mall! I managed to be a very good girl and only bought two things, one of which was on clearance. Plus I had a 30% off coupon that was good even on sale stuff. Score! It would have been a crime not to use, right?

I got this super soft yellow tee. I don't own anything this lovely butter yellow. I'm super excited to dress it up for a date night.


As if letting me out of my shopping cage wasn't enough, Nate also went to Starbucks with me after lunch. Yes, seriously! Those of you who know Nate, know this is basically unprecedented behavior. He gives me grief on a daily basis about my, uh, 'habit' and usually refuses to set foot in one as a matter of principle. But someone at work had been raving about the 'Chow tea' and said he should try it. I laughed in his face politely told him it's actually Chai tea and I would be happy to treat him to one with my fancy Gold Card. There are several kinds and I gave him my thoughts on the ones I had tried, trying to steer him towards the Apple Chai, but he wanted Berry, so Berry he got. After one sip he pronounced it 'piss in a cup' and drank less than 1/4 of his Grande cup. But, hey, I've got to give him credit for even going. Baby steps, people, baby steps.

We took advantage of the gorgeous weather and grilled steaks, asparagus and potatoes for dinner, then watched one of Nate's favorite movies, Road Trip.

All in all, a fantastic day and one we need to repeat more often!

Mommy's little helper

For the last several days, our house has been like Grand Central Station. I am receiving boxes and boxes of paperwork from all of our various offices that are being shut down. Yesterday by 10am, we'd already had a visit from the UPS guy, FedEx, DHL and a certified mail delivery. This constant parade of visitors, of course, sends the dogs into a tizzy.every.single.time.

By 9pm last night they were ready to call it a night, but I was making good progress on the sea of paperwork threatening to swallow up my desk so I was burning the midnight oil.

Lola at 10:00pm.
Time for bed, Mom? Come on let's go.

________________________

Lola at 10:45pm.
Seriously? Still working? Sooooo sleepy.

______________________

Lola at 11:30pm
Can't...make...it...another...minute...must.......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

You know you work too much when....

{image courtesy of dinkycow}

...instead of counting sheep, you recite Vehicle Identification Numbers to lull yourself to sleep.

It's a rough life...

...to be a dog in my house.

I went out to the kitchen a few minutes ago to make lunch and this is how I found Oliver on the couch in the living room.


I took three pictures and he didn't move a muscle. He was totally sacked out. So cute!

Retail is the best kind of therapy

I was having this 'text' discussion with my little sister, Amy, earlier this week. Retail therapy is the therapy that keeps on giving. Who needs to waste $150 on an hour long session exploring your Freudian issues, when you can blow that dough at the mall and reap the benefits every time you use your new stuff? Where do I sign up?

Alas, since the big layoff looms large on the horizon, I am no longer indulging in my favorite pastime. This weekend's version of retail therapy included a trip to Sam's Club. Woohoo. Good times.

If I were shopping this weekend, though, here's what would be on my Wish List.

I need another pair of shoes like I need a hole in the head, but I would love to add a pair of purple heels to my collection for spring. Not these by Steve Madden in particular, but something deep or bright purple, in a four inch peep toe. Not that I have given it any great thought, of course.


Maybe it's my longing for Spring, or the approach of St Patrick's Day, or the fact that wearing green allows me to pretend my hazel eyes are at least slightly less boring, but I am wanting an emerald green scarf in the worst way. I have had my eyes peeled for weeks, but can't find one anywhere.


Now that I will no longer enjoy the free book hookup at work, I'm going to start wearing my library card out. But when my favorite author cranks out a new one, I hate the idea of being number 124 on the wait list. Unfortunately for me, I hate the idea of shelling out $24 for a book even more, so I will take my place quietly behind number 123 and wait my turn.


And since you can never underestimate the power of pampering, I'd gladly drop a wad on a day at the spa. Massage, facial, and pedi, anyone?

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Whew! We've had a busy few days around here.

On Tuesday our new entertainment center finally arrived. Hurray! We have been waiting literally months to get the plastic table out of our living room.


TADA! Less ghetto, more fabulous!


I need to find something for the wall above or to the sides, but I'm not quite sure what I want yet. I also want to get something tall and thin for the right hand corner to draw the eye upward.

We love the way it looks, although Nate thinks the TV is too far back now. Um, it's a 56 inch TV, how close do you need it to be?


We also got some new bookshelves for the office. My company gives us a discount with a major retailer and seeing as how that will go away very shortly, we decided to go ahead and order them. They were badly needed - the little bitty ones we had before were just not cutting it.


My plan was to get them put together and switched out on Sunday afternoon. But those suckers took two hours a piece to piece together! I'm no slouch when it comes to putting together furniture but these seem unnecessarily complicated. After doing the first one by the instructions, I did the second one my own way, which turned out to be much faster and looked better in the end. Naturally.


Now I need to rearrange the books a little better so the one doesn't look so bare and add some fun stuff to them, maybe pictures frames and a vase.

Project for the weekend: Finally, finally, finally organizing and arranging my scrapbooking room! I'm only 14 months behind on my latest scrapbook!

Going down swinging

Oh, how I long for the days when my company strove for mediocrity. As bad as I thought things were back then, it's nothing compared to the utter madness that I am subjected to on a daily basis now.

It is like drowning rats fleeing a sinking ship. Seriously, nobody cares about anything but their own interests, people refuse to communicate with one another and we are screwing our vendors right and left. It's sad. It doesn't have to be this way but the Powers That Be seem determined to do this in the ugliest, messiest, dirtiest way possible.

I am trying to remain grateful for my paycheck when so many others weren't so lucky, but honestly, some days I just really really want to be free from the stress of it all.

Miracle Street

We had a minor miracle at our house last night. I cooked a dinner that included a main dish AND a side dish....that did not come out of a can!

Doesn't sound like much, I know, but this is major progress, people. My idea of 'cooking' usually involves heating up something that came out of the freezer. I consider boiling chicken breasts to be major dinner preparation. It is a rare night when we have a vegetable that wasn't nuked in the microwave.

Last night we had spinach and cheese stuffed shells and Swiss vegetable medley. Yes, I am aware that these two things in no way go together. But stuffed shells were my planned meal and I just really, really wanted the vegetable medley.

Swiss vegetable medley is my grandmother's recipe. I grew up eating this stuff at every holiday meal. I made it myself for the first time at Thanksgiving and now I just can't get enough of it.

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Shirley's Swiss Vegetable Medley

1 bag (16 oz) frozen broccoli, carrots and cauliflower (thawed and drained)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/3 cup sour cream
1/4 tsp pepper
1 cup shredded Swiss cheese
1 can French Onions

Combine mushroom soup, sour cream, pepper and 1/2 cup of cheese in a bowl. Mix in veggies. Pour into 1 qt casserole dish and bake covered at 350 for 30 minutes.

Top with remaining cheese and French onions. Bake uncovered for additional 5 minutes.

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TADA! Best.veggies.ever.

My grandma mixes in half the French onions at the beginning, but I don't care for them, so I just top Nate's 'half' with the onions at the end. He doesn't seem to notice the difference.

Also, you can use Monterey Jack or Cheddar cheese if you don't like Swiss. I usually use Monterey Jack and it is heavenly. *Cue angels singing*

Seriously, I woke up thinking about eating the leftovers at lunch time. I ate lunch at 11:30 just because I couldn't wait any more. And if I didn't hate onions so much, I'd consider eating Nate's portion of the leftovers too!