Mark made me a cake!

Yes, I'm still alive...

So, a few months ago, I decided that Mark needed to try crab legs. Now, pretty much every time we go to the grocery store, he insists that we look to see if they're on sale. Most of the time they are and crab legs have joined the regular dinner rotation at our house. It's really a pretty cheap dinner whenever we end up buying them...tonight we each had a crab cluster and it was $4.25 total. Toss in two baked potatoes and it's a cheap, delicious meal.

Fidgie really likes crab, too.

A New Phone for Lauren

Well, after having my original cell phone for many years (6 or 7, I think), I have finally bitten the bullet and ordered a new phone. I have been putting it off for years....literally.....and finally decided that if I haven't changed carriers or plans in the last seven years, I probably won't in the next two either. Plus, my phone is in poor shape. Something inside of it rattles when you shake the phone...which can't be a good sign. It has served me well, but I figure there are only so many things that can come detached inside of a tiny, old phone and it's only a matter of time before that broken piece breaks something else. So, with a 2-year plan extension, I got a totally free upgrade! Here it is, and LG CU515 (I think):Not quite as extreme as a new car, but it'll do!

Mega-post

So, it's not so much that I'm REALLY boring--it's just that I've been too busy and lazy to update here. So here, for your viewing pleasure, is an amalgamation of my October:

1. We have the cutest cat ever.2. Mark got a haircut--from me--in our bathroom!
3. The roof leaked. Mega-big-time. With steady streams of water from 2:00 in the morning until 4:30 in the morning. It was not good.
4. We named our Jack-o-Lantern "Maxwell" this year. He was spooky. But he was moldy and rotten within 3 days of being carved so we had to throw him away before Halloween.
5. These mushrooms were delicious.
6. Our cat does not like to be held. She does not like it one bit.7. I made apple strudel. It was marvelous and it turned out beautifully. It really wasn't as much of a pain in the ass as I was expecting. The only real problem was that the bottom crust got soggy within a week of having made the strudel. I'll have to figure out a better way to store it next time.


And last, but not least, Fidget likes to play fetch. With a straw. Her favorite toy ever.

I won!

Our local Jewel-Osco had a re-opening sale this week and the prize machine was there today. Basically a giant slot-machine type thing where you pull the giant lever and win a prize if you get all three pictures to match. I won with three pictures of beer--the irony! I got to pick out a prize from a whole big tent full of kitchen-type prizes. There was a toaster oven, a mini-deep-fryer, a quesadilla maker, an electric griddle, a blender, etc. But I got.......a fancy-schmancy coffee maker! It makes individual cups of coffee from pods!
Of course, as soon as I we got home and I was filling the water reservoir, I dropped it on the floor and cracked it. Then I started to cry. But Mark saved the day and fixed it enough that it is usable. It still leaks, but it's at least usable.

So far, I've only tried the "capuccino" flavored pod, which was a little disappointing. I read online, though, that that is the least impressive of all the types of pods.

This is great--the pods are probably more expensive than just getting a coffee pot and coffee, but it makes one cup at a time, it doesn't require pain-in-the-ass cleaning of coffee grounds, and it is actual good coffee (not instant stir-in stuff). Plus, it's cheaper than, say, going to Starbucks. And I got the $90 coffee maker for free!

So, Mom, next time you come visit and stay with us, you can have coffee!

HA!

Mom in the seventies. Ha! Made my day.

Ahh, how I missed school...

NOT.

Excuse the "not"--straight out of the nineties, I know.

Last week was rough. I worked a ton more than normal, Mark and I were both so busy that we saw each other for less than 2 hours all week until Friday night (literally), and school is really intense at this point. In anatomy, we learned the skeleton and the joints and we have a test this coming Wednesday. My brain might explode. In micro last week, we spend 5.5 hours listening to her lecture on antimicrobial agents in great detail, all the while wondering what the hell she was talking about. We don't really know or understand the vocabulary she was using and she literally went drug by drug talking about the chemical structures, exact mechanisms of action, and all kinds of other stuff that I don't even know how the hell I am supposed to memorize. We do 2 more chapters and 2 labs this coming week and the test is a week from tomorrow. In human growth and development, we have a take-home test due next week...haven't started that either. At least that is going to be easy and I don't have to memorize anything for it--it's just a pain in the butt. Luckily I'm doing really well in both Anatomy and Micro thus far (no grades yet for human growth and dev.)...hopefully it will last.

On the plus side, Mark and I went to the corn maze this Friday. We went during the day the weekend before they tore it down last year. This year, the corn was WAY taller (probably 10-12 feet high) and denser than last year...and it was dark. Walking around a dark, maze-ified, nearly deserted cornfield with flashlights was about 60% fun and 40% terrifying. I was more than a little tense worrying about Jack Nicholson jumping out of the corn with a hatchet. Overall, it was great fun. Plus, while we were making S'mores (they have campfires there too), we didn't have any close calls with flying flaming marshmallows this year (ahem...Mark). We decided that it is now an annual tradition.

Boring post, but alas, such is life.