A week of Concert Heaven getting closer.

So, I know I mentioned on an earlier post that I got VIP tickets to see Madonna in October I thought I would make mention again.  You see...  I get home from Europe the weekend before that concert.  I don't care how tired I will be after my first week back to work, while recovering from some serious jet lag, because she is my lifetime freaking idol, MADONNA!!!!!  

This will be my second time seeing her.  I am beyond excited about it. Well to make the week even better (not to mention a little more exhausting too) I got myself tickets to the Rise Against concert on the 2nd as well.  I bought those tickets the morning they went on sale.  I LOVE Rise Against. HUGE FAN! No way was I missing that show either.  So needless to say.  I am going to be really tired the following week but it is going to be soooooooooo UNBELIEVABLY worth it!!!!! 

Imperial Cities, Here I Come!



http://www.collettevacations.com/link/510628


Well Now that I have made my final payment I guess it's a good time to share my exciting news.  I am going on another big vacation.  Back to Europe!!!!  Yay!!! I have been keeping this pretty hush hush for a while now.  I decided as soon as I got home last year (December) from Europe that I would be going back this year.  I booked the trip in January. I am leaving in September for 2 weeks in Europe.  I will be starting in Prague, Czech Republic for a few days, then to Vienna, Austria for a few more days and then ending for a few days in Budapest, Hungary. I am very very excited.  I have been wanting to visit Prague for such a long time now.  I always hear such wonderful things about it.

Now that I have finished paying off the trip I feel I can really start getting excited about it.  So now is a good time to start finalizing my shopping list, and organizing everything.  Less than 2 months now!!!! 

Imperial Cities, Here I Come!

Fabulous Friday



It's Friday! It's Friday!!  Woo Hoo!!!  Not that I have anything really super exciting planned for the evening or anything.  Pretty much it is grocery shopping and chilling at home with a  movie.  Possibly take a nice walk around the Sparks Marina when the sun goes down a bit.  That's about it though.  But the point is... I don't have to go to bed early and I can enjoy the evening doing whatever I choose to do.  I might even stay up till a whole wopping 10:30 or 11pm.  Wild Time!!  LOL 

I'll be making up for that with a busy day tomorrow.  I, of course, have the fun Adventure Quest tomorrow that I mentioned in yesterday's post.  Then I have a small get together to go to in Carson City after that for about an hour or so.  Eating some yummy food samples from Wildtree. 

Now lets back things up a minute and talk about yesterday.  What a beautiful day yesterday was.  My long drive in to work had blessed me with some gorgeous cloudy skies.  :)  LOVED IT!  Funny thing is, so many of my friends know me and my love for dark, gloomy, rainy days so well they were all commenting on it in the morning about how they knew I must have been a happy girl. Then the lovely  cloudy sky turned to a good couple of hours of rain.  Oh my goodness HEAVEN!!!!   The moment I heard it was raining I took off outside and just stood in the middle of the parking lot letting the rain fall on my face for my entire break.  I was a happy happy girl.  Rain ALWAYS puts a mile on my face, no matter how bad things are going.  I can't wait for some more rain and some thunder storms. 

I guess this kind of turned into a Favorite Things Friday post too.  Hehehe

Clearly I am just not meant for this Northern Nevada Summer Heat.  LOL

Well I hope everyone has a Fabulous Friday!!!

X Marks the Spot



http://www.x-marksthespot.net/

I know, I've disappeared again.  I'm not sure how that keeps happening.  It's been a pretty busy few weeks.  Unfortunately some of the busy has been combined with drama which is one of my least favorite things so it hasn't made my mood so great lately.  I am trying to focus on the fun things coming up instead.  Well as much as I can anyway.  So for starters lets talk about my weekend plans.  I'm pretty excited about this.  We have the X-Marks the Spot Adventure Quest thing in Reno/Sparks.  We sign up as teams and each team gets given clues to finding the starting line to a race in Downtown Reno.  Then the teams are all in a race against each other to find more clues throughout downtown to find our way to the finish line.  It's about a 3-4 hour quest and I think it sounds like sooo much fun.  I first heard about it at the beginning of the year so I was trying to gets some friends to sign up with me.  One friend loves cold or cooler weather like me (OK, maybe not quite as much as me but much closer)and was down for signing up in March, but my other friend hates cooler weather and loves hot weather so wanted to do it in the summer.  YUCK!!!!  I hate being out in the heat.  But when a deal came up for 4 people for the price of 1, I couldn't say no and
the only time I could get 4 separate people with separate lives to all be available on the same day, it landed in July.  So here we go.  Going on our fun filled adventure quest in 100 degree weather.  I am stocking up on sun screen, a hat, water and a hand held mini mister to keep me cool and alive.  I really am pretty excited about it though.  Sooo much fun.  Then the following weekend my mom and some of her friends and I are dong another one.  Some time when it cools off I want to sign up for the Downtown Sparks one too.  :)

The rest of my exciting plans will soon follow.  There is a lot of excitiment planned.  :)

Oh, What A Glorious Week!

I had such a wonderful week last week.  My very good friends, "A" & "T", from New York City, were in town visiting for the week.  So I was able to spend as much time as possible with them while they were here.  They rented a house right on the Sparks Marina, which happens to be just a few blocks dow the road from my house, so they were able to host family dinners at their house for myself and their family.  So for starteres, A is the greatest chef ever!!!!  He is an Itaian boy born and raised in Brooklyn by a traditional, large Italian family so his cooking is AMAZING!!!!!!!  I was spoiled all week by his cooking.  I have really missed my friends and I am always so happy when they come visit in the summer.  A did remind me that it has been over 5 years since I was last in New York City visiting them though.  I will definitely have to plan my 2013 vacation to be back in New York City.  I love that city so much and could easily move there tomorrow.  So visiting there as often was my plan.  I would be thrilled to head back next year.  But not this year because 2012's Vacation has already been booked and paid for.   So They arrived last Saturday night and left to head back home Yesterday.  A whole week of fun friend time.  I had such a wonderful visit with them and miss them terribly. But I will be seeing them again soon.  Hopefully they will be back for Christmas. :)

As if the visit wasn't enough to make it a glorious week I have more.  I bought a guest bed... FINALLY!!!!   I came home from work on Thursday and it was all set up in my guest room.  YAY!!!  Now I can have guests come visit me at my new house.  I feel like such a big girl now. :)

Next was Saturday.  I was out all day on Saturday spending some time with friends then visiting my New York Friends, so when I got home, Santa had araived AGAIN!  My mom had bought herself new fancy front loader washer and dryer so her old (and when I say old I mean a couple of years old) front loader washer and dryer were being given to me and installed for me while I was out. I spent all afternoon Sunday doing laundry and having fun with all the new buttons and gizmos the new W/D have.  So fun! 

I know, I know.  This doesn't seem much like an exciting week but believe me,  That was A LOT of excitement for ME.  :)

Fabulous Friday ***Late Post***

Wow!  So it has been nearly a month since I have posted.  I'm not sure how that happened.  It didn't seem that long, in fact I am trying to think of what was making me so busy and although I know I have been busy and constant go go go, I can't actually think of anything in specific that was causing it.  Hmmmmm.  Funny how that happens.  Well how has everyone been?  It's Friday and I am soo excited because for some strange reason my mind was hell bent on yesterday being Friday and I was pretty upset pissed off that it was only Thursday.  

It's been kind of a trying week so I am happy that I get to go home tonight and relax.  My mom decided a few days ago that she would be inviting herself over to my house tomorrow for a BBQ so I am kind of excited about that.  As long as I get to sleep-in first. ;)   


Ok so I am also a little behind on posting this.  I know it's Monday and this was for Friday but I got kind of busy and then lazy. LOL  So I hope everyone had a great Friday and a great weekend. 

Fabulous Friday - Apples Make Me Hungry?



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Has everone had a great Friday???  Almost over!  Weekend is almost here... YAY!
Ok so for the longest time I thought I was the strangest person alive..... Ok... Well, in all actuality I probably am, but for all kinds of different reasons other than what I am about to talk about. 

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I have ALWAYS been told, "Hey if you're hungry, then eat an apple instead of those chips or crackers"  So I would and every time I would be starving afterwards.  Now, I don't mean oh a little hungry now, but I want to keep eating.  I mean STARVING!!!  I would start of a little on the hungry side but after eating an apple I am full blown stomach growling and burning "I NEED TO EAT NOW!"

Now how weird is that?  I thought I was the only one like this so I never said anything.  Well, one day I decided to so some online research on the subject and it turns out I am NOT the only one!!! There are many many MANY people out there who say the same thing.  It turns out it has something to do with the apple being straight water and sugar carbs and no protein to heed off hunger.  So if you are going to eat an apple so as not to eat the bad food before dinner then include some cheese or peanut butter to the apple.  It will hold you off a lot better that way.

Who else out there has the same hunger pains after eating apples?  I know there has to be more of us.

Just some interesting tidbits of knowledge for today.  Or just my weird idiosyncrasies...  Whatever.  ;)

Have a great weekend everyone! 

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Today Marks 4 Years!!!

Hey there!!

So today is a very special day to me.  It marks a very important accomplishment.  Today I am 4 years sober. 

Yep!  That's right.  I quit drinking 4 years ago.  Well quit drinking and popping pills. I couldn't be more proud of myself.  I won't lie, the first year was the toughest year of my life and I thought it ws never going to end.  Or that it would becuase I woudl never survive it, but I was wrong.  It did and then another past and another and a now another. 

Time for me to get a new Tifanny & Co. cahrm for my bracelet.  My sister bout be a Tiffany & Co. charm bracelet and my first charm when I hit 1 year sober.  Thent he following year she bought me the next char.  I haven't made it tot eh store to get myself the 3rd charm yet. (We don't exactly have any Tiffany & Co. stores anywhere close by to Reno, NV) So now I guess I will just need to get myself both of the next charms. :) So, I'm all caught up.

Well Happy April 26th to everyone!  Hope it's a wonderful day for you. :)

Saturdays are for Pedicures and Sushi!

Yay for Saturday!!!  Don't you just love love love Saturdays? I certainly do. So today was all about sleeping in, pedicures and sushi! now when I say pedicures I am sure most people think "Ahhh, heaven" or relaxing or pampering don't you?  Well, not me!  I never understand why I EVER think it is a good idea for me to get a pedicure.  I hate them.  Well I don't hate them I guess.... Hmmmmm. Yeah I hate them.  I love getting my toe nails polished.  That part I enjoy.  It's everything they do leading up to that part that I don't so much enjoy.

I am the most ticklish person in the world.  I scream and jump if you just look at my feet.  I feel bad for all the the nail techs that try to give me pedicures.  It's not an enjoyable experience for them.  Actually I take that back.  They are rolling in laughter way too much for me to believe they aren't enjoying it on some level.  My mom too.  She gets such a kick out of watching me climbing out of my chair and biting my hands to keep from screaming. To me, pedicures are like a cruel torture.  It is the largest form of insane torture and uncomfortable-ness that will make me spill all of the secrets of the world...  I wish I could just find a way for my toe nails to just grow out in pretty colors. The nail tech spends a lot of time dodging my involuntary kicks to their temples too.  I am sure glad they find it hilarious to watch though.  I do have to admit.... I am so very pleased and happy once it is all over and I have pretty toes.  Today's color was dark blue.  Sooo pretty.  Mom got her usual french toes.

So after the pampering torture session, my mom and I made sushi rolls today.  Our very first attempt.  In case you are wondering how a first attempt turns out... well you are in luck because I am here to tell you it is quite a messy and somewhat recognizable one. But it was FUN!

First I had to wash the rice?  Seriously, wash: the rice.  Multiple times.  How exactly does one do this without spilling rice all down your sink?  This is going to take some practice I can see.  Then in the rice cooker it went! Oh yeah!  I'm all about the rice cooker!

Looks pretty clean doesn't it?  Now while it's cooking it's time for me to make the "sticky" stuff for the rice.  Now the guy on YouTube made this look super easy.  Piece of cake! I can do this.

Ummmmm....  So did he mention that it takes FOREVER for the sugar to dissolve in the rice vinegar?  I don't' remember it take him this long?  Hmmm. Well I will just keep stirring, because really... How tough could it be to dissolve sugar in vinegar?  I must had had some pretty stubborn sugar.

Finally, success and I now have sticky rice!!  While I was fighting with the sugar mixture and mixing the rice my mom started cutting up the fillings.

Now I can start creating these bad boys.  Time for some sushi roll masterpieces!  Wow, no wonder they call this stuff "sticky" rice.  It sticks to EVERYTHING except the seaweed.  Spreading this stuff out thin is not an easy task.

How exactly to you thin this out?  This layer of rice is so thick.  So, note to self.  next time I should try to do thinner layer of rice and maybe a little less filling.  I might over over filled this thing a little.  LOL

But doesn't it look nice and happy and all in once piece. I am just happy it held together. :)
It it looked nice and pretty all cut up too. (notice the major amounts of rice. hahaha)

So I tried my hand a few more rolls and got them much thinner this time.  I decided to wrap them tightly in saran wrap to stick in the fridge for later.

So my Saturday was a productive one and a comedy of errors.  But those really are the most entertaining kind of days aren't they?  I had a great time.  Hope everyone else had a great Saturday too!

Holy Yumminess!

I just couldn't resist. ;)

Fabulous Friday



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 Happy Fabulous Friday Everyone!!!! 

Can I just start off by saying I have never been so happy for a Friday to get here... Ok, that may not be completely true. I think I feel this exact same way every single Friday, but still, It's such a glorious feeling!

I am excited to go to the movies with M and the kids tonight.  We are going to see the Disney Documentary Chimpanzee.  It looks so freaking cute.  I can't wait.  I saw the preview with I went to the movies with my other friend A to see One For The Money and was hooked immediately.  So tonight is the night.  YAY! 


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 Then tomorrow, my mom is coming over to my house so we can have a mother-daughter cooking project day.  We are making homemade sushi!  Woot Woot!  It's going to be so much fun.  Not to mention a little on the disastrous side, but fun none the less.  So wish me some luck on that! lol


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 I can pretty much guarantee my sushi tomorrow will NOT look that good or pretty though. 

Oh and last but not least...  The next best part about today be Friday.  It is the Friday before a three day weekend for me.  I am taking Monday off so I can veg or read or clean or pretty much do whatever the heck I want. YAY!  I am so excited!!

Anyone else out there as excited for the weekend as me??

Sunday Confessions

I'm linking up with Alyx for Sunday Confessions today.  So I am gonna let you all in on another little crazy secret.  Are you ready????

I LOVE salt and mustard.  I am a huge fanatic for anything salty.  I prefer salt over sugar any day.  So much that when I shop at Costco I have to pick these up each trip because I go through it THAT fast.  I know.  It's sickening isn't it?  But sooooo yummy!

I pretty much drown everything in Mustard.  You often can't even see my hot dogs or hamburger/turkey burgers.  I dip my fries in it. I put it on my fish and ham.  I freaking love this stuff.  When I was a kid I used to make money by betting my friends that I would drink the mustard straight out of the packet.  They never believed I would do it So I was winning nickels and quarters left and right.

I love salt, vinegar and mustard.  When salt and vinegar chips first came out I was convinced they were invented just for me.

So since I am such a lover of mustard and all things salty my friend M had given this to me for Christmas.  I thought it was so perfect.  as far as knowing me well... this paired well with all the coffee I received for Christmas as well.

So who else has some crazy flavor obsessions?

My Cake Ball Disaster

So I decided that I wanted to do some baking this weekend.  Now I have a pretty amazing personal "from scratch" cookie recipe that I created myself and spent years mastering and I have some pretty amazing "from scratch" cake, pie and cobbler recipes, but it has been a while since I was able to spend some time de-stressing in the kitchen with my KitchenAid. I wanted to try something a little different this time to ease myself back in.  So I went with the biggest craze out there these days.  Cake Balls!

I wanted to find a way to do these a little on the low sugar side so first I bought some Pillsbury Sugar Free cake mixes and frostings.  I thought this will be perfect.  The only sugar will be in the candy coating.  For some reason though to me, even though it is sugar free ingredients it seemed like it was going to be so so sweet still.  Then I discovered this recipe on line for Pumpkin Spice Cake Balls.  In case you didn't already know this about me, I LOVE PUMPKIN!!!!  It is my favorite flavor ever!  One of the many reasons why Fall is my favorite time of year.  What isn't great about fall?  I am sure many of you are also saying "Hey!  It is April, V!  Not fall.  What's with pumpkin flavored anything?"  Well... In my world it is ALWAYS pumpkin season. :)

I came home Friday night after work and started on the cake. So this recipe involves making the cake with just a dry spice cake mix and one 15 oz can of pumpkin puree.  Now I have seen this recipe around before and even talked to a friend who tried it.  She says it works wonderfully.  I still have a tough time wrapping my head around the idea but Hey, what the heck, I'll try it.  So I did.

Like I said, the idea of mixing only canned pumpkin puree and dry spice cake mix seems very strange to me but it did end up looking like a batter...

Although it was REALLY thick.  So I managed to get it into the greased baking dish but that was pretty hard considering how thick it was.  It wanted to stay attached to the spatula.  But I managed to get it to cooperate.

Into the oven it goes!  The first set of directions I saw said to bake it for 20-25 minutes.  Who were they kidding????  It was still straight dough at 25 minutes.  So I continued to bake it for another 15 minutes.  Knife came out clean. YAY! Now to let it sit and cool.  I let it cool over night so I could then tackle this project again in the morning.

Ok now it is Saturday morning and it is time to start the final half of the Cake Ball Fun! So I take out the 1/3 less fat cream cheese the recipe called for. This was another reason why I was so drawn to this particular recipe.  Low fat cream cheese instead of high fat sugary sweet frosting as the binding agent. So I first break up the cake and discover that this cake is really moist.  How yummy would this thing be if I just made it as a pan cake?  Wow..... Oh... Wait...  That might not be such a good thing for cake balls though. This thing could almost be TOO moist.  It basically made a batter on it's own.  Well, this is the first time I have done this so maybe it's supposed to be like this.  So I add the cream cheese.  HA!!!  Yep.  So it's pretty doughy. I could probably bake this thing all over again.  It is a lot like a bread dough now.

Well no point is stopping now so lets just push through and see if it all falls together right.  I roll the dough into several little balls and stick them in the fridge a couple hours to firm up.

After the balls chill out for a while I start getting the almond bark ready. I chose to go the double boiler route so it would stay warm and melty longer. (Is melty a real word...? Well it is now.)

This stuff is seriously thick too.  I'm beginning to think it's me... But now it's time to start dipping and coating the balls.  Alright, So when I first starting thinking about making these, my friend M also decided she would have a cake ball making weekend too but wanted to get some lollipop sticks for hers.  I thought she was silly at first.  You don't need those.  You can make them just fine I think without using the sticks and making them all fancy.  Silly Silly Girl.  Hmmmmm......  Well Ok.. So I'm not too proud to admit that perhaps she may have been a bit smarter than me on this plan.  The sticks really would have made coating these balls in the candy coating much much easier and perhaps much more evenly coated too.  Next time, I'm totally getting the sticks. I kept scraping the coating off whenever I tried turning the ball or removing it from the coating to set on the wax paper.  Ugh.... Not to mention the bare spot on the bottom of all the balls from setting up on the wax paper.  Oops.

I get them all placed on the wax paper to and cover them with some sprinkles to hopefully make them a little prettier, and let them harden.

Yeah, Ok so even the sprinkles didn't help much.  They still aren't very pretty. But they are ready to be put in a container for my occasional treat.

So I have to admit they didn't taste all that bad.  They were pretty tasty but not as tasty as I thought they would be.  They are really really gooey and doughy, but they were my first attempt.  I just have to remember all the times I did trial and error with my cookie recipe before getting them just right. They will do for now I suppose.  I just don't think they are very worthy of sharing with my friends.  I'm kind of embarrassed with how they turned out.  So I will have to give this another try again later. Maybe I'll try baking the cake a little longer to the point of drying it out a bit and maybe also use less cream cheese.

Maybe when I try the chocolate/peanut butter chip ones I have been thinking of, they will turn out a little better. We will see.

So to recap the ingredients, here is all I needed:

1 box of dry spice cake mix
1 15 oz can of pumpkin puree
1 package of low fat cream cheese
1 package of almond bark
sprinkles

Maybe one of you can come up with some alterations to this to make them a little better.
So once completed, I decided to reward myself... and by reward, what I mean is wallow in disappointment. I decided to treat my self to an iced caramel macchiato.  Somehow, coffee always makes me feel better. :)