LOTR, 40 garlic cloves, 2 chickens, 9 friends, 3 straws?

Many people may not know it, but I do like to cook...I just choose not to most of the time because it's too much freaking work! I feel like with sewing I can see and keep the end product forever. With food, there is just that instant gratification and then BAM! it's over. The food is gone and you are left with dirty dishes and a full stomach. I have cooked for people before, but I don't recall a time when I planned and prepared a 3 course meal for friends by myself. So I decided it was about time I tested my skills in the kitchen to see if I was able to pull if off.

ON THE MENU:

APPETIZER

Crostini with goat cheese, basil leaf, prosciutto, sauteed grapes, and balsamic vinegar drizzle
DELICIOUS!!

Steve enjoyed the mouthful of crostini.

An assortment of fruity beverages...and root beer


ENTREE
2 Chickens stuffed with 40+ garlic cloves. The chicken literally fell off the bone. So tasty! And there was even enough left over to make soup with the leftovers...and y'all know how I love soup!

Orzo, and marinated cucumbers in vinegar and dill. The cukes were my momma's recipe

Green beans with bacon.

My accomplishments :)

I had a proud moment

DESSERT

Trifle (no meat...sorry Joey)

Angel Food Cake, Jello, fruit, pudding, cool whip. Momma Domm's recipe

Me being proud of my work. Level of difficulty = 1, but it still tasted yummy

Homemade Frozen Raspberry Yogurt

oh kim...whatcha thinkin about?

DID I MENTION THAT DURING ALL OF THIS FOOD PREP AND ENTERTAINING THAT I FINISHED "LORD OF THE RINGS" SUNDAY NIGHT TOO?! BAM!!

Here is my review: That movie is too effing long. And yes, I deserve a medal for watching the extended versions. Although I didn't have a choice cause those are the ones my roommate had.

#1 was pretty boring, just wasn't feeling it

#2 wasn't so bad. It got a lot more entertaining with Golum..."my precious" haha. I like him

#3 was probably ok, but we were all talking most of the movie so I didn't completely follow it. But I got the gist.

VIGO WHATSHISFACE WAS PRETTY NICE TO LOOK AT THOUGH...

NOOOO!! DON'T MAKE ME WATCH IT AGAIN!!!



9 + HOURS OF LORD OF THE RINGS (NOT ALL IN ONE DAY...), SO DONE


I have to give it to people that entertain all of the time! It's so much work. I always had respect for how great my mom was at entertaining and cooking for people, but I really had my eyes opened this weekend to how much work she really put into it all the time. Argh, I miss her.

Anyway, I had so much fun cooking for friends and had a little fun watching Lord of the Rings.
Maybe I'll make it a once a year thing (cooking for friends, not watching that movie again)!

What, I just like profile pictures :)

Kayaking with a Silver Fox

A few years ago for Father's Day I told my dad his present was a day kayaking with me. And 2 years later we FINALLY kayaked! My dad had gone before out in New York a few months ago, but I had never been so I was a little nervous. Little did I know I had nothing to worry about!

Saturday we borrowed 2 kayaks from some of my dad's friends and took them to a little lake out in Oakdale. It was really close to my dad's house, which was nice because all we had to do was roll out of bed (well, on my part...I rolled out of bed but my dad had been up for a few hours as usual) and drive to the lake! It was a perfect day to be outside. It was warm and borderline hot, but bearable, and the water was nice and cool.

Perfecting our skills on land

Once we figured out how to put the seats in the kayaks everything ran smooth from there. As we paddled around my dad kept trying to scare me saying there were snakes in the grassy marsh areas we were paddling around. I tried not to think about that... But really, the lake was so nice, and it kind of reminded us of the marsh lands in Florida or something...minus the crocs.

Paddling around with my dad for a few hours was a great way to spend my Saturday. We had some good talks and fun times!

PS. This is taking the place of my "bike ride the whole Iron Horse Trail" goal I had made :)

PEREZ FREE FOR 1 WEEK IS ME!

I have an addiction! It's true, I love celebrity gossip. It's a fact that I'm not ashamed to share with the world. All of that juicy news that doesn't involve me, but in some way makes me feel better about my own life :). Anyway, I went Perez-free for 1 whole week! For those of you that have no idea what I am talking about...let me fill you in. Perez Hilton is the guru of celebrity gossip. He can be kind of annoying, but he is always the first one to report celeb news. I wanted to see if I could go a week without reading about stupid celebrities and more importantly, reading www.perezhilton.com since it seems to be my weakness. I always want to know what is going on with all these people I have never met, and I think I like it because it's totally brainless entertainment.

So, I did it...done and done. One week without looking at the web site. I admit at times it was difficult if I had a slow moment at work. Perez was always my default.

Nothing spectacular happened from not reading perez, but it did make me feel good knowing I could abstain from reading about all these peeps, and it helped me focus on getting more important things done...like...well, I'm not sure what I got done instead of reading perez, but I'm pretty sure I looked at www.cnn.com a lot more that week :)...now I am super smart.

So much, so tired

Hey all! Did lots this weekend...and marked a ton off my list!...but sadly i'm too tired to blog about it tonight. I'll try to get to it tomorrow. Had so much fun!! jules

There Once Was a Girl Named Oolie

Once upon a time there was a girl, lets call her Oolie, that had never gotten a facial before. One day she decided to get a bunch of her girlfriends together to go and have a facial "party" so they could get their facials done while sitting together, laughing, sharing stories, reading trashy mags, braiding eachother's hair...

Upon arriving to the spa, Oolie, Ittney, and Yeni were welcomed with a tray full of cheese and fruit!

So they ate

and ate...

and ate... (that block was full size at the beginning of the night)

and ...took? ("yes, this is happening"...said Ittney)

The three of them waited till one by one each of them got a revitalizing facial treatment full of masks, cleansing, and the most fun of all... Extractions (the removal of nasty blackheads...gross and awesome at the same time). Lucky for the facial lady, Oolie brought her a gold mine worth of extractions on her chin because let's be real, it was that time of the month and her hormones were battling her face and her face was losing.

Three hours later the 3 friends stepped out of the facial spa refreshed, feeling so fresh and so clean and ready to conquer the world!

FIN.

In a Mood

Gosh I've been such a Blog loser lately. I was so pumped about my 30 before 30 for the first 2 weeks, but I totally hit a wall this weekend. I love it, but it's kind of exhausting thinking about finishing all of it! I am not giving up, and all of the stuff on my list is totally doable, but I'm just tired.

It didn't help that this weekend I was in a crappy mood, which really only happens on occasion...but I hate it! Being in a funk sucks, but I guess we all have our "down" moments where we think about too much of the bad stuff in our lives and start to feel sorry for ourselves.

Bad attitude and all, I still marked 2 more things off my list AND got to spend time with some great friends!

Saturday Kim, Rachel, and I went thrifting! We only made it to 2 places, but it was still fun to hang with such cool ladies, and we did have some good finds.

The first place was an Army Navy Surplus shop off Washinton Ave. in Fremont. I admit, I looked this one up on Yelp, and the reviews were horrible, but I had to see for myself! It sounded like such a cool place. Well, the reviews were dead on. This place was sketchy!! It was dirty, the man at the counter was a creeper, and everything was WAY overpriced. But on the plus side of the 2 minutes we spent in there (I really wanted a shower after that one), Kim found a super cool Marines shirt!

The next stop was in Fremont as well, and I think it was called the Hope Station or something like that. I didn't find much, but I did find a cool Leather Fossil messenger bag for 10 bucks, and a leather belt for $3.

I love this bag! I've been looking for a good messenger-ish bag for a while now

...the search is over!

I like how the leather's worn

On Sunday we crossed another thing off my list and watched "Schindler's List". I had never seen it, even though I knew the premise of it ahead of time...it was still hard to watch. I wasn't really shocked by much of it (well, maybe a little of it) because I know what went on, but it just made the history of it all more real to me. I don't think watching that movie helped my mood either. It's hard to believe that so many people were murdered, and what especially blows my mind is how evil people can be to be ok with taking someone else's life. Definitely a must see.

And now it's Tuesday and my mood is a lot more sunny than this weekend! Maybe it's because of the thing I crossed off my list last night! I'll have to share that one with you later.

Luella

I have known Luella my whole life. She was my Sunday school teacher when I was just a wee little thing, and for someone I have barely seen in the past 10 years, she sure does a good job of remembering me! Without fail I get a birthday card every year, and every letter I get has "you are special" written on the outside. Am I silly that that "you are special" actually does make me feel special? I guess it's cause I know she does think I am special (well, not "special"...but maybe?! haha).

Have you ever known someone so thoughtful and caring that never forgets you, and that you wish you visited more, but never seem to make time for? I wanted to do this 30 before 30 thing not only to do exciting things I've never done before, but also to set myself up in habits that I want to keep the next 30 years. I always would tell myself to go visit Luella, but life gets busy and distracting. So, that changes now. I went to see her on Tuesday night and we had a wonderful visit. She is so funny and so easy to talk to. I'm not sure of her actual age, but I'm guessing she's in her 90's, but she is so with it! Anyway, we had a great talk and I will be back to see her more often from now on.