Two of My Favorite Things

Yippee! I was so excited to get this surprise holiday gift from Stampin’ Up! in the mail today! And this is a special sneak preview for all you stampers out there – This set will be featured in the upcoming Spring Mini Catalog!

Speaking of direct sales organizations, my friend invited me to a 1154 LILL Studio party. You must check out the Web site. They offer the cutest purses and you get to custom design yours by selecting all of the fabric. The party isn’t for a month, but I’ve already started playing around on the Web site, matching different fabrics and designs.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

It was so freezing this morning that I had to scrape ice off my car before I headed in to work. I don’t think they sell real ice scraper/brushes in these parts at all. So I keep a plastic spatula in my car for such purposes. It gets the job done.

I embraced the coldness and made a steaming pot of vegetable soup for dinner (alongside BLTs). I need to make soup more often. It’s tasty, filling, easy-to-make and can last a few nights as leftovers. Also, it was good to work some vegetables into the diet with all the candy and cookies that are being circulated these days!

Happy Anniversary!

Today is the sixth anniversary of our first date. Hooray! Every year gets better :)

I'm also happy today because -- barring the unexpected -- I have completed my Christmas to-do list. Getting here involved staying up past 2:00 a.m. to make 40 snowman hot chocolate packets, but I’m here nonetheless. I can't believe that I have nothing I HAVE to do today. I miss this feeling and plan to revel in it all day.

Yum-O

I made Rachel Ray's five-minute fudge recipe today, as it was featured on Friday's Oprah. I must say that it really did only take five minutes, and it is very tasty! Also, I'm in the middle of making the gingersnaps from Martha's "Baking Handbook."

In other news, we discovered that our house is walking distance from a fun bar, the Branham Lounge. We went there last night for a birthday party. It is quite a dive, and has an eclectic clientele, but we had a fun time. We had previously been leery of walking to this shopping center and the others at that intersection, because it involves crossing a very major road. We decided to walk there after we tracked the distance on the mile counter in the car and it was only 0.6. It only took 10 minutes and was quite pleasant! We are very excited because that means that we can walk to many fun places, including a yogurt shop, Taco Bell and a nail salon (well, I'm more excited about that). I always wanted a house that was walking distance to shops and stuff, so this makes me happy!

Out to Dry

Come on, people. If one of my posts was ever comment-worthy, it was yesterday’s. The only comment was from my mom. And I had to solicit it!!

Anyway, I will forgive you, and treat you to a view of my latest invention: a Christmas card clothesline!

I think this idea is so good, I’m considering sending it in to Martha and letting her use it as a “Good Thing.” I’m definitely going to be creating these little clotheslines for future holidays that warrant card mailing. I might even put one up in my craft room to display my fanciest work!!

You Need to Click on This Link ...

For a special holiday message from me!!!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?userid=e516c88e2112ac7b701d481G06121322

More Stuff I Made

I finished another project tonight. I took plain old Nestle hot chocolate mix and covered the tins with some card stock that I stamped. Made some tags, tied a bow and called it a night. These will be accompanying the homemade marshmallows as gifts to neighbors.

I think I’ve already overdosed on Christmas. It’s all starting to feel like a bit much. I only have one more to-do on my list, so I’m hoping that when that’s done I’ll be able to take a breath and enjoy things a little.

Oh, and I wanted to follow up on my promise to review the post office’s door-to-door service. I think it probably would work if you had a normal, functioning computer. I had a really hard time printing the postage labels from the Web, so I wasn’t able to try it out. Steve and I have just been making daily post office trips. There have been lines, but they haven’t been too horrible yet.

Also, Tubbs wanted to say “hi!”

Sweet Treats II

Instead of handing store-bought candy out to the people at his office for the holidays, Steve said he wanted to give them some of my homemade peppermint bark. Making peppermint bark is really a no-brainer, but it is tasty. I made three batches on Saturday, layering milk and white chocolate.

I just packaged them up into these little cello bags and stamped the toppers. The three batches made about 20 bags. Now I can cross one more thing off my projects list!

Sweet Treats

My second batch of Martha’s peppermint marshmallows came out much more presentable than the first. I marbled them with a knife rather than the recommended toothpick this time. Here’s a little pack all ready for giving!


I had planned to give these with a tin of hot chocolate mix as little hostess gifts. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get my act together fast enough. I had two parties this weekend to which I showed up marshmallow-less!

I have a bunch of other projects in the works right now that I will hopefully complete later today. One thing I did finish yesterday were these:


Yes, they’re just the boring Pillsbury ready-to-bake cookies, but Steve loves them.

I need to head to the gym now to combat all the little nibbles I took while working in the kitchen yesterday!

Pick-me-up

I have about a dozen packages to mail for Christmas this year. There's a post office around the corner from my office, so I decided I would take two packages in each day to mail, starting today. The line was SO LONG and SO SLOW, and it's only December 8!

I've been seeing all those commercials on TV that say your mail person will pick up your packages right from your porch. It sounds too good to be true. But I looked it up online, and the post office really does offer that service! You can print postage at home, affix it to your package and request a pick-up online. I have a few other packages ready to go, so I think I'm going to try it out tomorrow. I will follow up with my review!

Sparkly

This was the first year we put lights up on our house, so I thought I should document it. Steve did a great job with the net lights on the bushes. They were expensive (it took five nets to cover), but it looks so much neater than random strands. There's also some around the door. The little kids across the street even came over to pay us a complement on our lights!

You Can Call Me Barry

When I was in the shower at the hotel in San Francisco on Sunday morning, I noticed some weird red spots on the palms of my hands. I jumped out of the shower, afraid I was allergic to the hotel soap or the different kind of water.

The spots were itchy and stingy and would not go away! On Sunday night I started to notice I was also getting them on the bottom of my feet. I agonized my way through work yesterday with my feet itching all day. Today it was WAY worse. So bad that I had to leave work and go to the doctor urgently. I was even having a hard time driving because of the itchiness and the fact that it was making me jump and twitch in weird ways.

My mom took me to the doctor, and it turns out it is a virus that I probably got from someone who had previously stayed in our hotel room. GROSS! I had to get a Benadryl shot and a shot of steroids in either arm to help combat the virus. The steroid shot hurt like heck and made me queasy and light-headed. I almost passed out in the doctor’s office and had to stay there longer for observation. So embarrassing and annoying when all I wanted to do was go home!!

So, now I have to take another type of steroid pills for a week and continue to take Benadryl and use Cortisone. I really hope this clears up soon, cause it is disgusting and really irksome. Why have I suddenly turned into a virus magnet??!

Bah Humbug

We started off this past weekend by opening the first window of our little advent calendar on Friday night. It’s full of little chocolate treats. For the past few days, we’ve been enjoying the tasty nibbles, but today’s window was EMPTY!! What a gyp.

After that, we went out to dinner and then ventured to Los Gatos to drive through Fantasy of Lights at Vasona. Another GYP!! Twelve dollars and the whole thing didn’t even last 12 minutes. I’d been before and really enjoyed it, so I don’t know why I was so disappointed this time. Maybe the novelty has warn off.

Saturday we drove up to San Francisco for Steve’s office Christmas party. We stayed the night at the Hilton; the party was at Hotel Nikko. The party was quite fun, with delicious (and free) food and drinks in abundance. The photo below was taken just before the batteries of my camera ran out. It’s the best one I got once I figured out how to use the timer feature.

At the party, the sash of my dress took an accidental dunk in the toilet and we lost the raffle for a $150 Visa gift card by one number! BOOO!!!!

On Sunday morning we were awoken at 7:30 by screaming children in the hotel room next door. I punched the wall and yelled “shut up” several times, but they didn’t get the message, so I called security on the punks. They sort of quieted down after that.

We were up so early, we decided not to waste precious shopping time and ventured over to the big mall with Nordstrom. All was right in the world when we discovered that Nordstrom was having some type of early bird holiday event that featured a live swing band, a help-yourself gourmet coffee bar, a mimosa bar and fancy waiters passing lovely little pastries (all free). YUM! We got a lot of shopping done and had a tasty lunch in the city.

On the way home Steve accidentally ran a red light (we were behind a moving truck and the light was green when we approached). The next thing we knew there were flashes going off all over. They got our picture! DARN! That’s probably going to be an expensive little piece of mail when it arrives.

Anyway, I know it sounds like I’m complaining, but I did have a very nice weekend. And tonight I was able to get done a batch of swaps for our Stampin’ Up! meeting this Saturday. The set is so cute – from the new Winter Mini Catalog. It’s called “I like it a latte” and it has all kinds of coffee/hot chocolate images. And you know how I like my coffee and hot chocolate. You can't see it in the picture, but the steam is glittery and embossed.

No-sew Simple

I decided to make a few people on my list no-sew fleece blankets for Christmas. I've heard so much buzz about them, I figured I should try one out. I followed the instructions I found online here.

The one in the picture is for my grandma. I posted hers, because I'm quite sure she is not surfing the Net, trolling blogs. I really like that the two prints for this one coordinated so well.

Overall, I'm really happy with this project. It was very easy and the product is definitely something I can be proud of (which is not the case with most projects I make involving fabric). Plus, the blankets are super-warm and snuggly. I sort of don't want to give them away.

A few hints in case you want to try one out for yourself:

-- You need a lot of room to lay the fabric out. I did most of the work on these in my entryway.
-- I used a very large Fiskars cutting mat and rotary cutter to do all of the trimming and fringe. I absolutely cannot imagine how tedious it would have been to do the whole thing with a tape measure and scissors. My mat has a 1-inch grid on it, so that made it really simple to make the cuts for the fringe even.
-- In the instructions, it recommends tying the fringe in alternating directions. I did one that way and thought it looked a bit messy. I preferred the one I did with all of the fringe tied the same way.

Christmas Time Is Here

Just got through watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on TV. It was super, as usual, especially because I enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate with my delicious peppermint marshmallows while I watched it.

There was a great article in the newspaper yesterday that listed the dates and times for all of the standard holiday TV favorites. You can check it out here.

Wrap It Up

I found these adorable holiday socks at Target with a pocket for a gift card. I think they're a fabulous way to package a sometimes-boring Christmas gift. There are several cute designs to pick from. As you can see, our older nieces will be receiving their Barnes & Noble gift cards in these special socks.

I am also totally impressed by the array of gift card holders Safeway is offering. The ones I picked (below) are definitely not the cutest, but I needed something sort of masculine to hold cards for a few boys on my list.

Skip It

As part of our AMTSJ subscription, we had tickets to "Christmas Dreamland" last night. We had high hopes for it, as it's being advertised everywhere as a "singing, dancing extravaganza" and a "holiday tradition in the making."

It was at the Heritage Theater in Campbell, which was really nice, but so small it seemed like we were in a middle school auditorium. It was a nice idea, and the sets and costumes were impressive, but the sound system was bad and you could barely understand the words when the performers were singing. The whole thing just needed a bit more polish – it seemed like there was a visible mistake in every scene.

They did make it snow in the audience, which was cool. It probably would have been fun for kids, except our seats were in the balcony and the retail value listed on the tickets was $48, so not quite family-friendly pricing.

We heard that a live performance version of "A Christmas Story" is now playing in San Jose, so maybe that's more our taste.

Oh Tanenbaums!

We got our Christmas tree yesterday and did a few other holiday errands. This year we opted for a Noble Fir. I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. putting the fall decorations away and the Christmas decorations out.

In addition to the main tree, I put out my little three-foot fake tree devoted to my Starbucks collectible ornaments.

Next

Here are my two other Thanksgiving contributions: cranberry sauce and sweet potato casserole. I have much experience with those, so they came out delicious. The pie was good, but it was a bit gooey and probably could have used a few more minutes in the oven. Oh well, live and learn.

To get into the Christmas spirit, we saw "Deck the Halls" last night. From the commercials it seemed like it could have been a new "Christmas Vacation," but it didn't quite measure up. If you're looking for a good movie to see this weekend, look further.

Easy as Pie

I did it! My first-ever pie. Actually, I've made pies before, but they involved a pre-made crust, Jell-O and Cool Whip, so they don't really count.

The crust was tough, but after many tries I got it big enough to cover the whole dish and thick enough to be transfered from the counter to the dish. Those little things on the top are supposed to be flowers made from candied pepitas. What are pepitas you ask? When I came across that word in the recipe I had to look it up. They are the meaty bits inside a pumpkin seed. I found raw ones at Lunardi's and candied them myself.

I'm a little disappointed that I used canned pumpkin instead of my home-grown babies, but I wasn't sure if mine were the proper variety for cooking. There's always next year. Well, maybe we should wait and see how this tastes tomorrow before I go making plans for pie No. 2.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Cup of Cheer

As I mentioned before, Martha's special "Holiday Handmade Gifts" issue is full of great ideas. A few nights ago I decided to do a trial run of her peppermint marshmallow recipe. It was a pretty intensive process, but not too hard. The main thing I need to work on is getting the red food coloring to marble through the marshmallows. Mine just turned into a solid pink layer on the top. That's OK, cause they still taste absolutely scrumptious!!

Brown Paper Packages

I made some headway with my holiday shopping and wrapping this weekend. Sometimes I like to use regular old brown parcel paper jazzed up with a festive ribbon. I didn't have any festive ribbon on hand, so I used a big snowflake stamp I bought at Michael's ($1 for a set of three!) and some Stampin' Up ink with the coordinating marker. No bow, no tag, but I think it came out kind of cool. Next time around I might stamp the recipient's name or write it a bit fancier.

A Word to the Wise

If you are on Blogger, DO NOT "upgrade" to Blogger Beta. YUCK! I totally screwed up my page. I guess I'll work on figuring out how to fix it at some point over the weekend.

Didn't fall off the face of the Earth ...

... just succumbed to a tidal wave of pre-holiday activity.

But things should be a bit better moving forward. I have the day off today, since my friend is flying in from San Diego this afternoon to spend the weekend visiting me. Also, everything I do from now on will be inspired by the delicious sounds of Christmas music. KOIT (96.5) switches to their all-holiday format at 3:00 p.m. today, and I have a feeling that KBAY (94.5) won't be far behind. HOORAY!

Right On

I was reading some marketing data from one of our clients at work today. It was a report that summarized the many different types of consumers the company is targeting with its product. It included information like what TV shows each demographic enjoys, where they like to eat and, most importantly, where they prefer to shop.

The attributes varied significantly, from Victoria's Secret to 7-Eleven, and from Good Housekeeping to Maxim. Despite the differences, Target was listed as a store of choice for every single demographic included in the analysis.

This got me thinking: I don't know a single person who doesn't LOVE Target. I know plenty of people who absolutely despise its counterparts Wal-Mart and Kmart, but Target is like the golden child in that family.

Does anybody out there hate Target or know someone who does? I'm really interested to know if there are any Target haters out there and why they feel that way.

Shark Byte

Just so nobody can say I'm slacking, I wanted to do a quick post about my evening. Tonight I went to the Sharks game with my friend who is a season ticket holder. We had lots of fun and enjoyed a tasty dinner at the Tied House. Now I am tired and am going to bed.

Back in the Saddle

Oh my! I can't believe Thanksgiving is just two weeks away! I have volunteered to bring a homemade pumpkin pie this year, in addition to my standard cranberries and sweet potatoes. I have never made a pie from scratch before, so that should be interesting ...

Steve turned 30 this weekend. To celebrate, we had dinner at Claim Jumper and saw "Borat." Both were popular Saturday night activities. The wait at Claim Jumper was two and a half hours!! Thank God I had made a reservation. It was very yummy, though. I can't wait to go back, cause half the fun was looking at the plates other people in the restaurant had ordered. We got to the movies 30 minutes early for the 9:25 p.m. show, and it was sold out. We had to do the 10:25 p.m. show, and people were madly lining up to get into the theater 40 minutes before it started. I could not believe how long the line got by the time they were ready to let us in. The movie was hilarious.

Other than that, I just did a few projects, cleaned the house, ran some errands, and had lunch with a friend. One of the projects I finished was this:

I did a swap on Splitcoast Stampers where 26 people signed up and we each picked a different letter. Then we had to find a favorite fall recipe that corresponded with that letter. We typed up our recipe and embellished it on a 6x6 scrapbook page (times 26), and then sent our pages in to one lady who divvied them up and returned them to us in the mail. So now I have a lovely A-Z fall cook book of recipes from all different people. I did "O" and decided to call my favorite pumpkin coffee cake recipe "Out of the Box Pumpkin Coffee Cake," since it requires two boxes of pound cake mix. All in all, I was happy with the experience, except that the ladies who picked C and W flaked, so I had to make my own pages for those letters this weekend. I also embellished the 6x6 album I put the pages in (as you can see in the photo above).

In other news, I've started my Christmas shopping and wrapping. So far so good. I also have plans for my homemade gifts that were inspired by Martha's new collectible Holiday issue.

Fun with Numbers

Number of people who have now contracted the stomach virus of death: 10

Number of trick-or-treaters we had tonight: 102

The quantity of trick-or-treaters has increased every year by about 20. Our first year here, we had 69. Last year, we had 86. And now 102! I'm quite excited about the impressive gains. I'd have to say that not many costumes were standouts. We did have two teenage guys in Speedos and sneakers. And a lot of witches and little boys wearing those bloody "Scream" masks. We did almost run out of candy at one point, but we ended up breaking into a box of fruit snacks from Costco we had in the pantry.

Here are our pumpkins. I did mine with a stencil. It's a bunch of little ghoul faces. Not my best work:

And this is Steve's fantastic work -- A vomiting pumpkin:


Speaking of vomiting, Steve was home sick from work today because of the stomach virus of death. I was feeling much better today, but I still have a really horrible headache. The initiator of the virus came trick-or-treating to our house wearing a cute little monkey costume, so I had to forgive him. Since we weren't feeling well, I heated up some butternut squash soup for dinner and tried to make jack-o-lantern faces with my roasted pumpkin seeds and some sour cream. The sour cream sunk, so my vision was ruined. These look kind of stupid, but they made me smile:

Hope everyone had a fantastic Halloween!!

Happy Barf-day to Me

Yesterday I mentioned that we spent part of the weekend at a beach house. Well, some of our friends came with their baby, who had been sent home from day care the day before because he was throwing up and had a bad case of diarrhea. He seemed to be doing better, so they brought him along to the festivities.

After dinner, the baby's parents both started throwing up and headed home.

Last night, at about 4:00 a.m., I woke up and started throwing up. That lasted through the rest of the night and continued into the morning. I called in sick to work and spent my birthday with my head in the toilet and my butt on the couch. I'm still a little nauseas and have the chills really bad. But I've been able to keep down some crackers and drink some ginger ale, so that's a good sign.

Steve started making some calls and it turns out there are six of us (so far) who were at the party and have fallen prey to this mysterious baby virus of death. I have a feeling that Steve is next, because he's been exhibiting some symptoms.

So, for my birthday, I will probably be dining on soup and crackers. My mom and dad came over earlier to drop off some supplies, including the soup, crackers, ginger ale, a bag of marshmallows and the newest copy of US Weekly. I was a very bad hostess and threw up during their visit :(

It was very nice to get a few birthday calls from friends, since that was my only interaction with the outside world today. Steve also came home at lunch to keep my company. My mom told me that when they were driving down my street, they saw some kids from a preschool around the corner walking around the neighborhood for a Halloween parade. I couldn't even make it up to look out the window and watch that cuteness!

I hope tomorrow will be better. Consensus is that Day Two of mysterious baby virus of death is a bit better, but not 100 percent.

Fall Fun

Lots going on lately!

Friday was our Halloween costume contest and other festivities at work. My team dressed up as mental hospital patients, driven there by our jobs. Friday night I went shopping and had dinner with some girlfriends to celebrate my birthday. When I came home, we watched "Friends with Money" from Netflix. It was OK.

Yesterday we slept in really late and went out for breakfast at The Original Pancake House. I enjoyed a delicious apple pancake. Then we drove to Capitola to spend the day at the beach with some friends. The weather was great. We went in with a bunch of people on a condo rental there for the night. It was a send-off party for two friends who are moving to Oregon. We barbecued, drank way too much and stayed up way too late, but it was lots of fun.

This morning, we were not feeling too hot -- I was especially thankful for the extra hour! We helped clean up the mess we made at the condo (that is the one really sucky part about rental places) and drove home. I spent a few hours playing with my new favorite toy: Karaoke Revolution for PlayStation 2! My sister bought it for me for my birthday. It is FABULOUS. I've already beaten the easy level of the game. We had In-N-Out for lunch and carved our pumpkins. I'll post pictures on Tuesday when they're all lit up. I roasted up the seeds and did a few other chores around the house.

Tonight, my parents are taking Steve and me to Le Papillon for our joint birthday dinner. I think I'll also get to open my presents from them tonight. Yay! Well, I must go get ready ...

Culinary Tip

Peeps taste very good in hot chocolate.

Bottle of Wine on the Wall

I heard about a new craft studio in Willow Glen. I'm not going to name it just yet, as I'm not sure about my feelings toward it. Anyway, I decided to check it out tonight cause they were having a class on stamping on glass. I was intrigued because, as far as I know, that is impossible.

Turns out I was right.

The teacher was a woman who makes these kind of cool glass pieces. The one I chose to work with was a wine bottle that had basically been flattened in a kiln and had a hook at the top for hanging. Oh, I should mention that I was THE ONLY PERSON who had signed up for this class. Anyway, the special inks that I had to use for this task were in very limited and ugly colors. And they did not work correctly with the foamy stamps provided. As I continued to work on it, it just got worse and worse. Two hours later, I brought home this monstrosity:


It's so bad, the picture doesn't do it justice.

The cool thing about the studio is that they have just about every craft supply imaginable that is available for you to use (at no extra cost). I tried to jazz the thing up with some embossing powder, metallic pens, various fibers and some beads. YUCK!

So, when I got home, I popped all the beads off, untied the fibers, and poured some acetone on it. (Yes, I happened to have a bottle of acetone lying around.) All the grossness came off. Yay! So I retied the fibers, and now I kind of like it:

The ladies there were very nice, and I'm willing to give it another chance, cause there's a very cute Christmas craft class coming up that I want to check out.

SURPRISE!

I threw a surprise party for Steve's 30th at Dave and Buster's last night! It's been in the works for quite some time and I'm really proud that I didn't blab!

I rented a room and had 25 people for dinner and drinks. We played a few party games in the room after dinner and had yummy cake from Icing on the Cake. Our room had three pool tables and two shuffle board tables, so people played on those for a while. And everyone got a Power Card to play in the arcade.

There were so many little details that I worked on -- favor pouches, game prizes, invitations, etc. -- that I wanted to share, but I didn't get any photos in fear that Steve would find them on the digital camera. Last night I was so nervous that things would go well, I didn't get the ton of pictures that I would have liked.

I'm just really happy that he was genuinely surprised and that everyone seemed to have a nice time.

EDIT: Oh my! I just checked my site meter and a bunch of people came to my site yesterday after searching for info on boo kits!!! Ha ha! I'm so glad they're getting popular!

Corny

I made the cookies pictured above this morning. Mine did not come out looking like those. This is the kind of recipe where I think you need to do a practice batch or two before perfecting it. The main problem was that the chocolate layer did not expand in proportion to the other layers when baked. I'm not sure of the science, but I bet there's a fix. Anyway, if you want to try it yourself, it's online here: http://www.bettycrocker.com/Recipes/Recipe.aspx?recipeId=42399.

My co-worker sent me this story yesterday: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15334972/page/2/

So exciting!! I might be able to enjoy Dunkin' Donuts on a regular basis by 2020!

"Nightmare 3-D" was good last night, though there weren't a lot of traditional 3-D things jumping out at you. Just a bit more dimension to the animation (or claymation, or whatever it is). The previews and the little cartoon beforehand were awesome. It looks like Disney has a bunch of new 3-D stuff up its sleeve.

Party Hat

It turns out that I didn't have to rake the leaves last night -- Steve took care of it when he got home from work. Yay!

Tonight I am heading to my mom's annual Halloween bunco party. She truly goes above and beyond with the decorations and the all-around happy and warm fall vibes. Her friends request that she host October bunco every year. One of the ladies can't make it tonight, so I'm the sub. The dress code is "festive," so I will be wearing my phenomenal witch hat. I'm sure it's going to be a hit!

Also, for all of you local "Nightmare Before Christmas" fans, I have some good news! The new 3-D release is playing at the Century theaters at Oakridge Mall starting tomorrow. You can bet that I'll be standing in line as soon as I get off work tomorrow. I'll be the one who's not in goth attire.

When Autumn Leaves Start to Fall

We have two big trees in front of our house that lose a TON of leaves in the fall. Yesterday they just started dropping like crazy, and we have a big mess to rake up.

To make matters worse, I believe we are the only house in a significant radius that doesn't have anyone home during the day. When we get home at night it's dark, and that makes it very easy to defer the raking. Everyone else's raking gets done on a daily basis, so our house looks really bad in comparison.

Last year, some neighbors raked our yard for us (without us knowing). I know they probably thought it was nice, but it really bothered me. Because, hello, we were going to do it if you could just give us a second. Anyway, in an effort to avoid that from happening again, I think I'm going to bust out the leaf blower tomorrow.

I figured I would feel accountable if I wrote it here, and that would make me actually do it.

Bad Sports

As Steve alluded in the comments of my previous post, we have reason to believe that one of our round-two boo recipients took the exact bag we thoughtfully filled, walked down the street, and left it on somebody else's porch. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Did he misunderstand the instructions? Did he just not want to participate? Is it better that he re-booed rather than just taking the bag and ending the chain? (And just to clarify, it wasn't a single guy, but the dad of a seemingly nice little family.)

The other family we booed never even took the bag in the house. The last we saw, the untouched bag was still sitting out on their porch. (Yes, we're sure that they're not on vacation.) Did they think it was a bomb or something? Were they leaving it there as evidence for the police?

People are so weird.

Boo Update

Not more than 24 hours after I initiated the "booing" in my neighborhood, I've been booed back! I'm so excited -- I guess that means the boo recipients enjoyed the surprise!

Whoever booed me took a big cue from my treat selections. I got some pumpkin Peeps, some little cans of Jones Berried Alive soda, Halloween Oreos and a pack of Reese's pumpkins.

We'll be back at Target tomorrow for round two.

Spooky Surprise

Steve and I just returned home from booing our neighbors. What is booing, you ask?

Well, what you do is fill a bag of Halloween treats and anonymously, in the dark of night, leave it on your neighbor's porch. Usually it includes a little note telling your neighbor to spread the fun and do the same to another neighbor. Does that make any sense? I'm not sure ... It's late.

In the past, I'd only encountered homemade boo bags. Well, while shopping in Target the other day, I came across an awesome boo bag kit. It includes two cute bags, some candy corn, a poem instructing your neighbor to go to Target and buy the same kit, and a little ghost sign to hang on your door to indicate that you've already been booed. That is genius, because it sucks when you keep getting booed back by the people you booed. I said boo way too many times in that sentence. Boo.

Anyway, when you buy the boo bag kit, you must stuff it with goodies. Lucky you: You're in Target. And they happen to have goodies. Here is what I bought for my bags:


Some Dove chocolates, Halloween Oreos (with orange cream), ghost Peeps, little cans of Jones Spooky Cider, and some little Halloween candles. Here's the finished product:

So, we just dropped them off on two of our neighbors' porches. I don't know if they'll suspect us.

The only problem with the boo kits is that they don't include a little ghost door sign for the person who initiates the booing (me). That means I'll probably get booed back. But I'm cool with that, cause it gives me an excuse to go back to Target and to spread more Halloween fun!

If it wasn't for bad luck ...

Happy Friday the 13th from my favorite black cat! (Well, he's not totally black, but you get the picture.)

This is Halloween

Fantastic news: "The Nightmare Before Christmas" is being re-released in 3-D!

Not so fantastic news: The closest theater playing it is at the Metreon in San Francisco.

Maybe *somebody* would like to take me for my birthday?! :)

20 Days

A few people have been on my case to make a birthday list, so I just wanted to mention that my Amazon Wish List has been updated (link is to the right).

I've included some "Karaoke Revolution" games for our PlayStation so I can start practicing for future karaoke engagements.

There are a few other things I want/need, so I'll fill you in personally if you're interested.

Bargain Bites

I read an article about this today, and I think it's fantastic. Amazon.com now sells restaurant gift certificates at a discounted price. For example, you pay $10 for a $25 gift certificate. It's e-mailed to you, you print it, and you're good to go. Check it out:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/?%255Fencoding=UTF8&me=A2MDGNBFSCCZAG

It's organized by city. Several of the ones in the Bay Area are restaurants that I actually go to. Some I've never heard of before. I hope more establishments jump on the bandwagon!

Sunday Stamping

My friend (and fellow SU demonstrator) Gina had a bunch of girls over this afternoon for a "stamp and chat." It was quite fun, and I got to finish up these cocoa holders I'd been wanting to make for a swap I'm in on Splitcoast. As you can see below, when you pull the ribbon on the top of the card, a fun surprise pops out.


I think these are great little holiday gifts for friends/co-workers you don't want to buy something big for. I'm thinking about doing a workshop on how to make them.

Bombed

We went to a party at the diviest of dive bars last night with a bunch of Steve's friends from work.

I sampled my first Irish car bomb (a perennial Steve favorite), and it was actually good despite the gross combination: Bailey's Irish Creme and Guinness.

There was karaoke at the bar. I'm always sad when there's karaoke, because it seems like people have these great practiced routines. Afterwards, I say I'm going to commit myself to practicing a song and making a routine, but I never do. Maybe that'll be my New Year's resolution.

Fauch

Continuing with the old lady theme, I went to the DeAnza Flea Market this morning. I bought three exceptional "fauch" (or faux Coach) items. I also purchased a set of framed vintage Halloween postcards. I've started a little collection of vintage Halloween images.

When I checked out, the lady running that booth complemented my shirt. I just stupidly said "thank you" and walked away. Then I realized I was wearing a shirt that I made from one of the vintage Halloween postcards in my collection! So dumb!! I should have told her I made it, and then maybe she would have wanted to order up a batch to sell at her booth! Then maybe a famous celebrity would buy one, and there would be a massive demand for an original "Ashley Tee" (that's what I decided I'd call my line of apparel). Anyway, here's a picture of the shirt:

I'd explain how I made it if I didn't fear some blog troll would happen upon it, steal my idea, and make millions of dollars ;)

Penny Pincher

We had a really wild Friday night out.

We went to dinner at Sweet Tomatoes. I had a coupon.

Then we went to Target to buy some cat food. I had a coupon for that, too.

I think I'm becoming an old lady.

Smelly

I just got the new Yankee Candle catalog in the mail. It looks like they have some really delicious new holiday candles! And I have a coupon code to share! If you buy online and enter CAT610A when it asks for promotional codes, you'll get $15 off a $45 order.

I think I'll be stocking up!

The Rose

Oh my gosh -- I did NOT want to watch "The Bachelor: Rome." But it happens to be on the TV right now. And I happen to be sitting right in front of it.

I don't understand why they're still making this show. I mean, there have been like eight sequels, and only ONE has worked out. Actually, I bet Trista and Ryan broke up. I expected to hear about their babies a long time ago, and I haven't heard a thing. I want an update. Seriously.

Anyway, this bachelor is a prince. And he's totally dumb! There's a girl whose occupation is listed as "socialite." I can tell already that she is going to be fantastic!!

Yay! Now I have a Monday night show!!

EDIT: What the heck!?? ABC just went out on our DirecTV! It says they are "working to restore the signal." They better work a little faster!

Tickled

If you haven't heard yet, Tickle Me Elmo TMX is the hottest toy for the holidays. We heard about the frenzy last week, and Steve went on an Elmo search. Our local Toys 'R Us was sold out and didn't plan to receive its next shipment until mid October. But they did have a few of the Elmo TMX Barbies, so he bought two.

Steve sold the Barbies on eBay for over double the price he paid for them. So, yesterday we went out and found a bunch more to sell.

Our Sunday ads came early, and the Wal-Mart ad featured Elmo on the cover. So I called Wal-Mart and they guaranteed they would have some today, but recommended coming right when the doors open (7:00 a.m.) if I wanted one.

We woke up at 5:30 a.m. today and headed to Wal-Mart. We were the first in line. When they opened the doors, there were six of us. We scurried to the toy section and found NO ELMOS! The employees in the toy section said they didn't have any.

Needless to say, I was PISSED. Additional Wal-Mart employees confirmed that there were no Elmos to be had.

Now there were about a dozen shoppers looking for Elmo. We all gathered at the customer service desk and the angry mob mentality started to set in. After about 20 minutes of waiting, a manager came out and told us that they did actually have some Elmos, but they weren't supposed to sell them until 10:00 a.m. Obviously, that was not going to work for us.

She ended up having us line up, and we each got to buy one Elmo.

THANK GOD! Cause if I spent my precious sleep time standing outside of Wal-Mart for no reason, I was going to kick somebody.

Now we're just wondering if we should put them up on eBay now, or if we should wait until closer to the holidays. If anyone's in the market, just let me know and we can work something out ;)

October Flowers (and Showers!?)

After watching Martha last week, I learned that now is the time to plant bulbs to bloom in the sping. So I went to the nursery and bought a bunch of tulips and crocuses, which I planted in the front yard yesterday.

I also bought these pretty mums and planted them in a big pot. I think they're quite lovely!

And I'm excited that the newspaper predicts rain for tomorrow. Yay! Not only will I be able to fully embrace fall, but I'll get to skip a day of watering my new flowers.