I'm baaaaack!

After a short (or long to some) hiatus, I've returned. Where have I been? I'm glad you asked!! I've been right here this whole time. I finished another quarter at school, and am off until summer (boo!). This past quarter was fairly easy, except for the group project. I don't understand the point of group projects in grad school. If it isn't bad enough that I work full time, and go to school weeknights, that now I need to give up my weekends! The project came together ok at the last minute, but it was fairly aggravating.

Work has been kicking my butt too. Things are finally starting to calm down a bit though...which in this economy is making me nervous. I'd rather be jam packed with work so at least I know I'll have a job.

Now that the warmer weather is here, gardening will be at the top of my priorities along with getting in shape. Hubby has already started planting veggie seeds in a seed starter kit which the kitty cats love. We're cleaning out the flower beds to make room for the spring annuals. The daffodils have bloomed and the tulips are on their way. I planted all of the lovely tulips I was brought for Easter dinner last year and most are coming up in full force.

Those that live in glass houses shouldn't ...

Every Tuesday I leave work a little early to try and beat traffic on my way to night class. I usually get to campus an hour or more before class because traffic is just that bad around the city. I kill time sitting in my car watching the people walking / driving by. Today was no different only I left a little later than usual and had to parallel park on a busy city street with minimal space. I used the pull right in tactic but I was 2 feet away from the curb. Grrrr!!! I tried to straighten out but backing up and moving forward several times did not change the situation. I had to pull back out (in rush hour traffic here) and re-park. It was ridiculous to watch, I'm sure!

Once my car was parked correctly, the people watching commenced. I saw a guy throw back a bag of doritos...not something I personally do in public, a lady walking a really different colored Siberian husky, and some people driving like absolute morons.

The parking authority drove by my car and slowed down, which freaked me out. At that point it was 5pm and time for me to pay the meter anyway. I had my quarters all ready to go but the meter was out of order! It was overloaded with quarters probably due to the recent price increase. I took a picture of the meter # and out of order sign just in case. I'm worried I'll get back to my car tonight and have a ticket! After seeing Parking Wars on A&E this weekend I'd rather not have any run ins with the PPA!

Happy V-Day!

Hubby and I celebrated our 1st married Valentine's day together! We exchanged cards and a bag of green m&m's for him and a tiger stuffie for me. Normally we put alot of money into Valentine's Day but with our recent purchases and the economy it's money better left unspent.

Our recent purchase for Hubby's birthday:

It's awesome! I couldn't see wasting money on another Dell laptop with Windows Vista...so I'm not a PC. I'm a MAC baby!! The iMAC is currently sitting on my desk, with it's fancy printer, while my laptop and printer(s) are homeless. I bought Hubby the wireless keyboard and mouse too. We've been uploading CDs onto it all weekend since Hubby lost all his music when his Gateway crashed after which his iPOD died.

Saturday morning, Hubby helped a friend move and I spent the morning with my mom. We went to the gym and had a good work out, went to the supermarket, and even fit in a quick trip to the fabric store. Hubby and I had dinner with my parents, my brother, brother's gf, and brother's gf's son instead of fighting the crowds of couples trying to have a romantic dinner on an overrated non-holiday. Mom made meatloaf topped with mozzarella cheese, twice baked potatoes, spinach, and green beans. I made an Angel food cake for dessert which we topped with strawberries and whipped cream.

Breathless Peach Cheesecake - No Bake!

Hubby's birthday was February 5th! He turned 29 this year :) In honor of his birthday and because he loves cheesecake I made him a peach cheesecake. The recipe is super easy! My mom used to make this for us, so I did a quick search of the internet and here's what I came up with:

Ingredients:

1 env. Knox unflavored gelatin
1/4 c. cold water
1 can (16 oz.) lite peaches, drained (reserve juice)
1 pkg. (8 oz.) lite cream cheese, softened
1/4 c. sugar

Directions:

1. In blender sprinkle unflavored gelatin over water, let stand 2 minutes.
2. In small saucepan, bring juice to a boil. Add juice to blender and process at low until gelatin is completely dissolved, about 2 minutes.
3. Add remaining ingredients and process at high until blended.
4. Pour into 9 inch pie pan (graham cracker crust).
5. Chill until firm, about 3 hours. Garnish with peaches.

Pic of my work area, complete with new blender!

The cheesecake was easy to make, really good and definitely something I'll be making again!

All ready to eat!

Annoying neighbors, crappy weather, and a stinky dog

Things are pretty sucky right now.

I'm a terrible blogger at the moment. I'm highly unmotivated to blog or do much of anything that does not involve sitting on the couch under 3 or so blankets and watching television. Oh, I can blog while sitting on the couch watching TV? Ooops!

I fell off the church wagon. How hard is it to give up an hour of my Sunday for God you ask? When that hour is in the morning at 8 am, it's pretty darn hard right now, especially since it's winter. I've been meaning to go back but church then leads to me going food shopping (Acme is right up the street) and I hate food shopping, especially when it's all little old ladies (coming from church of course). I want to be in, then out, without knocking little old ladies to the ground. It scares me because I look at them and think, wow, that will be me someday. Makes me want to cry quite honestly.

I've also fallen off the gym wagon. I was motivated to go, along with everyone else right after New Year's. None of the machines I like to use were available so it was pointless going. I need to go back especially with the 7 boxes of girl scout cookies Hubby bought, the baking I've been doing, the huge bag of Swedish Fish (mmmmm!) from Christmas, and all the take out we've been having.

It's been an especially cold winter here. Last night it snowed more than has in the past 2 or so years. The snow covered trees are beautiful. I love snow, except when I have to drive in it. Beetles are not made for driving in snow and unfortunately I had an exam last night. The teacher bumped the exam up to earlier in the evening because of the weather but was 40 minutes late!! By the time I left after the exam the roads were messy and snow covered. Weather forecasters predicted 1-3" of snow and damn were they wrong. Philadelphia received 8" of snow last night!

I couldn't get my car up any further in the driveway after class because it was mostly covered in snow.

The beginning of the storm!

Our neighbors are ridiculously (insert negative adjective here). We try to stay out of their way, avoid eye contact, etc but sometimes its hard to ignore them. For the past 48-72 hours we've been experiencing a round the clock rock concert. Brother #2 who occupies the upstairs apartment has all of his windows open (yes, it is very, very cold here) and is blasting music starting around 730-8am until 10pm. It's annoying because there is no escaping it in our house. I don't know how the people (his brother & family) deal with it!!! I've going to get a copy of the local noise ordinance tomorrow.

Paige is going to the vet tomorrow. It's time for annual check up, shots, etc. I'm glad she's going because her eyes have been runny lately. I'm not a bad fur mommy though! Her eyes have always been runny, just really bad lately. She's also quite stinky! We're going to have the vet check out her situation but it's pretty bad. I'm afraid she's making our whole house smell like butt!

Pretty (my parents beagle) & Paige napping during Pretty's visit last weekend.

Hubby's bday is tomorrow so it's time to get cracking on his birthday cheesecake.

What If...

Do you ever think about the consequences of your actions? Do you ever think if maybe I hadn't of done this, that wouldn't have happened?

I have these moments all time.

A week or so ago I drove to Wawa for lunch. It was the day of Obama's inauguration so I left a little early to get back in time to watch the swearing in ceremony. Anyway, I was stopped at a traffic light right outside of work waiting to turn left. Normally there is a green arrow but I guess I didn't get to the intersection in time. I made my left....and so did the person in front of me. I don't know if they weren't paying attention...or just thought there was a green arrow so they could go, but they got slammed into by pickup truck making the left turn. The pickup truck definitely sped up (a-hole) because I was turning in front of him but this lady clearly wasn't paying attention.

I felt really bad. Really, really bad! I didn't know it had even happened but Hubby heard it and turned around. From what I heard everyone was OK....but I felt like what if. What if I had waited until there weren't any cars coming? I obviously was in no way at fault for the accident but it definitely made my day suck knowing that someone, like me, was just going to pick up lunch and probably totaled their car. Ugh!

Merry Christmas!

Not that many people read this, but I apologize for my lack of blogging lately. Things get hectic around the holidays. All the baking, shopping, decorating leaves time for much else. I've backed 2 batches of choc cookies (recipe off of the Nestle choc package), 1 batch of press cookies (soon to be 2 because I can't stop eating them), 1 batch of snicker doodles for Hubby, and I've still got 2 batches of butterballs left to make (my family's favorite - it will NOT be Christmas without these), and 1 batch of peanut butter for Hubby (only if he finally goes Christmas shopping tonight). I picked up the cutest cookie tins this year but I will definitely plan ahead next year because they unfortunately cost more than I really wanted to spend. The cookie list is ever expanding which this year will include an extra large tin to my brother, his gf, and her kids, plus a little one for my neighbors next door. I still have to buy one last present, wrap everything, and pick up some treats for the dog.

This has unfortunately been a very expensive month for us. My car needed some work done, and the parts for my car are more expensive than the average car. Seriously, my tires cost $200 a piece, and I've replaced them all at this point!! Last week, one of the holy sh!t lights on my dash illuminated on the drive home from work. Rather than go home, I took it straight to the dealership. My alternator apparently died and from what the tech said I was lucky I made it that far. So $730 later, I have my car back...and that's just for the alternator and labor, I didn't need a new battery or alternator pulley (whatever the he!! that is). We dropped off Hubby's car this morning. He needs new brakes...hopefully that doesn't break the bank!

I hope to have another post before Christmas but if not,

PO Box or No PO Box??

I have a PO Box. Why? It's complicated. I signed up for one yesterday...but I've come to realize how silly it is that I have one. It's only for six months and so it's not a huge investment. It started with PBS and even more recently some recipe swaps (I hope I get some good ones!!) and I just wasn't comfortable with strangers having my address even if they did live across the country...it feels like an invasion of privacy which is weird because I never had an issue giving out the same info purchasing items on ebay. Now that I have a PO Box (for a whole day) I'm realizing it's pretty pointless: if someone really wants to find out where you live, its really not very difficult in this technology driven society. I've gotten people's addresses on the internet before, for Christmas cards mind you! The internet is a scary place, with alot of personal information out there. Did I do the right thing in getting a PO Box? Well it can't do any harm. In my opinion it's better to be safe and waste a few bucks a month. So now I just have to get to the post office before 5pm to check it...good thing it's not so far away!