Surf n Turf

Besides crawfish, the other big meal this past weekend was at Longhorn Steakhouse. The dinner was with the Boy's whole family for his brother-in-laws birthday (which I attempted to say in the last post as well, but it didn't quite make it). They have a tradition where on any one's birthday they get to pick the restaurant and the whole family attends. Some people tend to pick the same restaurant every year, other people mix it up. Longhorn Steakhouse was mixing it up, as I (and probably several other people) had never been there.

The boy and I go there about 30 minutes early (because he's obsessed like that). No reservations had been made so we put our names in for a table of 8 and a half. Me, the Boy, his parents, two family friends, his sister, her husband, and their 20 month old daughter (aka the half). Being that there were several couples at the restaurant all dressed up for prom, this was probably not the best day, and we were given a wait time of 1 hour. (Yes, prom. Schools get out really early in Louisiana. As in before Memorial, when I had my prom in California. Thus the reason prom was early.)

Everyone else winds up getting there, and we are of course still waiting an hour later. The manager comes over and tells us that they are waiting on a table. The party finished their food, paid, and is just sitting around talking and hanging out. This of course angered members of our party (understandable since we had been waiting for about an hour). However, there wasn't a lot to really do. If I was the party in question I wouldn't have wanted to be rushed out of the restaurant.

The manager was nice though and told us as soon as we sat down he'd get some appetizers for us on the house. Eventually, we got our table and ordered two orders of cheese fries and a fried onion. A few minutes later the manager came back, "Did you say two orders of cheese fries and fried shrimp?" We told him, that no it was the onions we ordered. He just kind of shrugged and told us we could have the onions too.

Even with the amount of appetizers, I didn't downsize my order. I had over an hour to pick it out after all. I would up going with the honey steak, which was pretty amazing. It had caramelized onions on top and a really good sauce. I of course got mashed potatoes with it, and a salad. A strawberry pecan salad. Which is pretty much a variation of my favorite salad. It was over a good mix of gourmet lettuce with of course had strawberries, pecans, grapes (I'm guessing they didn't have enough strawberries so they supplemented with another fruit?), and feta. I am obsessed with feta, and if I am in a restaurant and I see a salad with feta I will pretty much order it.

I don't have any pictures from the actual restaurant but I do have one of my leftovers! Here is my honey Bourbon Steak, some of the Wild West Shrimp, and some fries from the Boy's leftovers.

Clearly, there was a good amount of leftovers, but after splitting FOUR appetizers and bread, how could there not have been!

~Shoshanah

P.S. Ashley at Daily Goods is giving away a make your own gummie candy kit.

Crawfish Boil

Yesterday I went to a crawfish boil for the boy's brother-in-law. The boy was working so I drove myself. Of course first went the wrong way on the interstate, and then missed the turnoff into their neighborhood and drove about 20 minutes out of the way. I was nervous on the drive over, partly because I didn't want to get lost but also because I get nervous when I go to any social type of gathering myself (Does anybody else freak themselves out this way). I'm glad I went though because I had a really great time.

For those not in the know, a crawfish boil in Louisiana's version of a Maryland crab feast. (Unfortunately, if you're not familiar with a crab feast I'm not sure what to compare it too.) You cover the table with newspaper and dump the seafood on top. One thing they add are a few vegetables to soak up all the seasoning. This one had corn, potatoes, mushrooms, onions, and sausages (not a veggie I know). Other people mentioned having broccoli or artichoke hearts as well. There were 3 batches, (what's on the table is only the third batch to give you an idea of how much there was).

Now just for fun a crash course on how to eat a crawfish. At first glace they look a little scary, and can be a little intimidating when you first start. But since there's so little meat in each one, you get a lot of practice. So here goes...

Step 1: Break of the head. Yes it does sound cruel. But they have already been boiled alive, so it can't get a whole lot worse. Some people like to suck the juice out of the head. Some people don't. I'll do it every once in a while. All you really get is a spicy flavor.

Step 2: Peel the tail. I find it works best if you fold it in half first to break it and then peel the pieces off. There's about 1 or 2 bites in each tail.

Step 3: Break open the claws. The is an optional step, that a lot of people don't feel gets you get enough bang for your buck. I'll only really do it if the claws are HUGE. I think part of it is because I used to eat Maryland crabs which had far bigger claws. I just don't think the claws are worth the effort most of the time.

So there you have it! Just in case you get invited to a crawfish boil soon, you now know what to do!

~Shoshanah

Movie Reviews

I Love You Man
This was actually a lot better than expected. I really didn't think I would enjoy it as much as I did. Overall it was really fun and even had a little romance in it. Paul Rudd was really cute, and was in so many situations that I feel are right out of my life. All those time where you say something and immediately after wonder WTF did I just say. Well that happened over and over and over again. So often, but it never seems to get old. The girl who played the love interest was really cute as well. Overall it's a good date movie. Enough laughs and bathroom type humor guys will like it, and enough romance that girls will like it.

Monsters vs Aliens
I love the whole 3-D movie craze that has taken hold lately. It can pretty much turn a bad movie into an awesome experience (Main Case: Journey to the Center of the Earth) Luckily, this was not the case, and was actually a good movie. Some of the 3-D effects were a little overdone, but purposely so. It was supposed to be a spoof of old school monster movies after all. Like all good animated films it had enough jokes for adults as well as the kids. I'm sure you've all seen the picture of the "E.T. Go Home" missile in the preview. But what they didn't show is the E.T. theme that accompanies it. And knowing it is a Dreamworks movie (which is owned by Spielberg) had do you think the humans first decided to greet the aliens. Again, I recommend this. (Honestly though, a movie has to be awful for me not to.) It's overall just a good fun time! And if you see it be sure to do so in 3-D

And just for fun, here's a shot of the two of us wearing our 3-D glasses. I took this without the flash, and I really love the effect that's going on!

~Shoshanah

reFormat

I apologize for the lack of my Frozen Thursday post last night. At around 6:50 last night my computer decided to die. After talking to the nice guy from India (where it was 4am and he is working a 2am to noon shift. And he also liked Slumdog Millionaire. I asked.) My computer is officially reformatted. Which of course is sad. Luckily, my computer isn't that old (October 2007, its still under warranty), so there wasn't a whole lot of information I lost. Most of the important stuff is online such as my pictures, my blogs, even my bookmarks were saved on my Google toolbar. The only thing I am kind of sad about is I started keeping an excel file to keep track of my finances. Mainly so I could see my student loans every month. I've only been doing it the past 3 months so its not that awful.

The only other thing of course are my Sims families. But since the Sims 3 does come out in June, I'm not planning on putting them back on. I figure I'll have more suspense for Sims 3 this week.

Thankfully, as far as computer problems go this one has been pretty nice.
So once again I apologize. Frozen Thursday will be back next week. I'll have an actual post later this weekend.

~Shoshanah

100% Chance of Rain

I talked about my morning routine before. How I leave my apartment before 7:40 and am at work 5 or 10 minutes later. Well today I left by 8:40 and didn't get into work until... get this FORTY MINUTES LATER. As in 4-0. Seriously.

Turns out last night a severe thunder storm high Baton Rouge. I do remember waking up once or twice, but promptly fell back asleep. When I did finally get up I couldn't remember if that really happened, or if I had dreamed it. I had no idea how bad it was until I started my drive.

I turned out of my apartment complex and there's a light about half a block down. It took me TWENTY minutes to go to that light. Half a block in 20 minutes. I started counting light cycles and I believe once I was close enough to see the light, and believe I saw it change 6 or 7 times. Each time there was only room for 2 or 3 cars to get through because traffic was so backed up.

With not a whole lot else today I spent my time listening to the radio. The DJs were of course talking about the weather and traffic. They said there might have been some tornadoes in the area, but they hadn't been confirmed. Several communities had lost power. A woman called in and said there was a street blocked off because a roof had blown off.

Once I finally got to work (20 minutes late of course) there were more stories to be had. One employees looked into her back yard to find all her patio furniture had blown away. One of our sales leaders was in town at a hotel. He said he got out of bed after patio furniture hit his window for the second time. Also, his hotel lost power and he had to use his laptop as light in the bathroom. The boy said he drove down a street where a tree had blown over onto 2 cars and part of a house. One employee's daughter had her school day canceled. Most schools were open, but this one had lost power. This means this past year school was canceled due to a hurricane, a snow storm, and now a thunder storm!

Thankfully, no one cared I was late, becuase they all were too. My supervisor didn't arrive until about 30 minutes after myself. The radio also said there is a 100% chance of rain tonight. And yes, it is currently raining.

~Shoshanah

P.S. Don't forget to stop by later tonight for my Frozen Thursday post!

Too much coffee

I'm seriously confused by some of the google ads my blog gets. Some of them make a lot of sense. New Orleans Plantations. Well I just posted about about my trip to Oak Alley. A parallel parking car. In that same post I did talk about driving the wrong way down a one way street. But others...

I keep getting ads about having yellow teeth! Seriously! Does this mean some google spy is looking at my pictures, saying my smile isn't yellow enough? I've never talked about toothbrushes or brushing my teeth, so what is it?

The only possible explanation is that I talk about drinking coffee to much. They must assume that because I drink coffee I must have yellow teeth. I mean they aren't perfect. And I have actually whitened my teeth before (it was back in high school). Of course by posting this I'm only going to make the problem worse, so I apologize in advance about all the added dental hygiene adds you will probably see do to this. Sorry! Anybody else notice any other weird ads here, or even on your own blogs?

~Shoshanah

Jon & Kate Plus 8: To Be Continued???

I was already planning on writing my thought about last nights J&K+8, and after receiving several comments about it... well I figured I had to do this post.

Overall the actual episodes themselves weren't anything spectacular. Jon & Kate take all the kids to see the Harlem Globetrotters. Kate takes the 6 pack to a museum. But one thing that was interesting was a piece of information mentioned in both of the episodes.

Jon wasn't there for part of both episodes because he was spending time taking care of his mother. I think they said she had broken her leg and Jon's step father was out of town. Not that big of a deal in the scheme of things. But a big deal considering they NEVER talk about their parents. Yes, they have talked about Jon's father several times and even shown pictures of him. But he died when the sextuplets were about a year old. They have also shown Jon's grandmother and extended parent's. But this was the first time even mentioning being around their parents on the show. The only other times they have even been mentioned was on a FAQ episode talking about why they don't mention they.

I even read their book, and they barely mention them in that! The talk about Kate's parents baby-sitting Cara and Mady. But the last instance of Kate's parents is when they watched Mady and Cara when Kate had the sextuplets. After that, they just kind of disappeared from the book. I'm not sure why they brought up Jon's mom, but I am glad they did. Even if it was just mentioned in passing.

But the big news? Well, this was the end of season 4. And at the end of the episode, they sat down to talk about it. Kate was really excited and kept saying how she loves what she's doing and she loves her life and is so happy. Jon had a bit of difficultly expressing himself, but basically said, "I don't feel like Jon anymore. I feel that I am only part of Jon & Kate Plus 8." Jon kept stopping to try to sort things out, and every time time Kate would chime in. Something along the lines of, "SOME of us are having a hard time getting used to things. But I love the way everything is right now." So basically it made it sound like Kate was ready to start filming season 5 tomorrow, whereas Jon didn't ever want to film ever again. Based on the way we've seen their relationship worked. I'd say getting ready for season 5 coming soon!

~Shoshanah

P.S. Erinbee is giving away a whole bunch of Newman's Own Goodies!

Movie Reviews

First, before I post my movie reviews I wanted to say that I absolutely hate having movies spoiled by reviews. I read reviews to try to decide if I should see the movie or not, not to get the whole plot line. For this reason I don't normally read movie reviews. Also, I try my best to write my reviews without giving away any major plot points. So if you haven't seen a movie and don't want to read the review I won't be offended that you didn't read it. However I will do my best to get across my feelings on the movies without ruining it for you. Now that that's taken care of...

Knowing
I had high hopes for this movie and was pretty much let down. Being a math person, the whole number puzzle intrigued me, but wasn't really that difficult to solve. (Hmmm... what could 09112001 stand for?) I did like the math lecture that was in the movie. So often the "lectures" they show are supposed to be an upper level class, but the actually cover pretty basic lessons (21 was a good case of this).

Parts of the movies were somewhat jump out of you seat scary, which I like, in a movie at least.

Overall the first half of the movie was a lot better than the second. They created an interesting problem, but didn't really like the way they solved it. All I can say is if there were a little more social skills involved things would have been a lot easier.

Duplicity
This movie was the exact opposite and I like the end better than the start. This could have been due to the fact I was trying not to fall asleep during the first part. Parts of it were confusing, going back and forth in time, but again it would have been less confusing if I was more awake.

There was an interesting twit at the end and all the main actors (Julia, Clive, and even Paul Giamatti) were really good. If I had to choose between the two of them, I would say go seeing Duplicity first.

~Shoshanah

P.S. Anyone else excited for the season finale of Jon & Kate Plus 8 tonight? There's supposed to be some big revelation, and I really don't think they are getting divorced. I hope not!

images from Google images

Day at Oak Alley

This past week one of my good friends from college and her husband were visiting New Orleans. I was working all week while they were here, but yesterday I was able to drive down and see them.

No I am not a big fan of driving. Pretty much anytime me and the boy go anywhere I make him drive. But he was working so it was just me driving. I was planning on meeting them at their hotel, so decided directions from the hotel's website would be better. I called them on the way across Lake Pontchartrain, telling them I'd be able 30 more minutes. Not even close to a good estimate on my part.

Their hotel was in the French Quarter about two blocks off Bourbon Street. Lots of one way streets and overall not a fun place to drive. But I go off the interstate and tried to read the directions while driving. I made the first turn and got into the left lane. check. I made the U-turn. check. But didn't stay far enough to the right. So had to turn around to repeat the steps. U-turn. check. stay in the right lane. check. This was supposed to get to to Toulouse street. Instead I wound up on Orleans. So I circle the block to get back where I started. I turned right to get back to where I started.

Not a good idea. Turns out this was a one-way street and I was going the wrong way. The driver in the first car was waving at me frantically pointing the other way. Lucky for me all the cars when in the right lane, so I was able to go down and turn around. This time I managed to end up in front of the hotel. The hotel who had a full parking lot. I circled around the block hoping to find a parking space. I drove down a few blocks and found a parking lot. $10 till midnight. Not bad.

The rest of the day went far more smoothly. We went to breakfast at Clover Cafe, this tiny place off Bourbon. Me and Megan both had waffles which were pretty amazing. Her husband had the breakfast special: eggs, sausage, and potatoes. After that we walked down to the Mississippi and got onto our tout bus.

Our bus took us down up to Oak Alley, my favorite plantation on the Mississippi. It's about an hour drive from New Orleans, so the bus drive showed us a video of various Louisiana plantations on the drive. I wound up sleeping through most of it. We did make it to the plantation and had some time to take pictures before our tour stated.

This is me and Megan standing at the end of the alley of oaks. If you look closely between our heads you can see the actual house.

The tour itself was good. Although, I have had better tour guides on various plantations. After the tour itself we did have time to explore the gift shop before we had to get back on the bus.

I wound up buying a Mint Julep and these peanut clusters. We also bought a small carton of pralines n cream to spilt on the way back. We drove back to New Orleans down the river road passing Felicity Plantation, Evergreen Plantation, and Laura Plantation among others. We also watched a video of the restoration of Laura.

Once we got back to New Orleans we had to walk by my car to get back to their hotel, so I figured that was probably a good time to make the drive back to the BR. Luckily, I made it back without driving down any one way street the wrong way or getting lost.

Overall it was a really good day. It was really good to see Megan. It's so crazy to think I graduated from college almost three years ago. It feels like yesterday. So crazy how quickly time flies by!

~Shoshanah

Shepherd's Pie

Amy's Shepherd's Pie
I was all set to say this was my first time trying this. But I pulled it out of the mircowave and suddenly remember eating this exact meal. Funny how that works. I really like this! (Surprise, surprise) I LOVED the organic mashed potatos on top. (umm I love mashed potatos pretty much any time) Thoses were probably my favorite. Although the garbonzo beans came in a close second.

The heating time worked out pretty well. You can kind of tell it overflowed a tiny bit. And there were tiny parts of the edges that were a tiny bit overcooked. But a lot of the time with mini pot pies you have a frozen center and this wasn't like that at all.

It wasn't a lot of food. I'm still a little bit hungry, but I don't NEED to eat any more if that makes sense.

Finishing up, I hope everyone has a great weekend! Any big plans? I am planning on meeting up with a friend from college, and going here:

I can't wait!

~Shoshanah

Even or Odd

My post yesterday had some interesting feedback, especially concerning my even number issue. So I figured I'd provide a little clarification.

As weird as it may sound I know exactly where this came from. Growing up, my best friend had a bit of an issue with this of her own. Whenever I was at her house and needed to change the volume on the TV, she'd make me change it if I didn't put it on an even number. I guess that bit was classically conditioned in me. She does not have the same issue with repeating numbers or with numbers ending in zero, so I'm not sure where that came from. And I'm not sure how or why I've applied it to my alarm as well (which is just my cell phone)

I'm not sure when this exactly started, but I'm pretty sure it was in college. Growing up our TVs didn't have numbers on the volume. I also didn't set an alarm, I just relied on my parents to wake me up. I distinctly remember requesting the volume HAD to be on an even number on a ski trip my Junior year of college, but I'm not sure how much before that I was doing this.

Overall, this isn't that big of a deal. (The easiest solution, buy a TV where there are no numbers on the volume.) The worst though is when the volume is on 18, and you need it a tiny bit louder. Well, the next even number is 20, and that doesn't work because it ends in a zero. Then there is 22, and that doesn't work because the 2 repeats. Then you finally reach 24. I have had several times when I have gone back and forth between 18 and 24 trying to decide if it is better to have the volume too low or too high. I have managed a compromise with myself, and when it is EXTREMELY necessary I will allow 21. (That was my uniform number on my college soccer team. It's pretty much the only odd number I have a soft spot for.)

Andrea wanted to know if I had a problem with odd numbered dates. And no! It really is just with TV volumes and my alarm time. (I'm OK with odd numbered radio volumes.) She specifically asked about 3/3/09. Which is a great day because its a perfect square! I love fun little dates like that! (Hence my Pi day post) Other fun dates? Well, Mole day is 10/23. My Birthday is 10/10. And there was a great moment a few years ago when it as 12:34 on 5/6/07.

Now that you all think I'm crazy, I think this is a good place to end. But really, anyone have their own issues with numbers?

~Shoshanah

Wake Up You Sleepy Head

Earlier today Amber on Amber Alert posted about her morning routine. Can I say that I am the exact opposite. Ummm, I think the only time I ever wake up before 6am is when I have a flight to catch. Here is my normal morning.

7:04 My first alarm goes off. Yes, the alarm is set for 7:04. I am weird about what time I set my alarm for (the crosses over to what number I have the TV volume on). I need it to be an even number. But I can't have a number ending in zero. For example, 7:00 would not work. The alarm goes off at 7:04, I turn it off and reset it and then go back to sleep.

7:08 My second alarm goes off. I can't just hit snooze when the first one goes off, because it would go off 5 minutes later at 7:09, which is an odd number. I turn the alarm this alarm off, and lay back down. I figure I have a good 5 minutes still to stay in bed.

The is probably the worst decision in make in the mornings, since I lay back down and don't set a third alarm. On a good day I manage get myself out of bed by 7:15. Today was not one of those days. I didn't make it up till 7:30. Thankfully, I have always gotten up, so I guess it is working for me.

Thankfully, I am able to get dressed and ready pretty quickly. I'm always out the door between 7:30 and 7:40. Even when I don't get started till 7:30!

I literally live 10 minutes away from work, which is the only reason I'm able to do this. Even today, getting out of bed at 7:30, I was able to clock in 5 minutes early at 7:55.

However, on a good morning I can fit in a Starbucks run. I actually have to drive by work in order to get to Starbucks. I've figured out that in order to make it work on time and go to Starbucks, I need drive past the driveway to my office by 7:45. If its before 7:45, then I know I have time to drive the extra block for a latte. Otherwise, I'll turn in to the office.

I definitely have been cutting it close the past few mornings by stying in bed so late. My goal for tomorrow? Get up with the second alarm at 7:08. Then I'll have time for Starbucks. I'm at least willing to sacrifice my sleep for that!

~Shoshanah

Bank to Bank

The first bank account I ever had was a joint account at Wells Fargo. I was in high school in Southern California. I was excited to have an account there because, well haven't you seen The Music Man?

"Papa! Papa! The Wells Fargo Wagon is coming! The Wells Fargo is coming!"

Plus look at their logo. There's an actual wagon and horses on it. Like a stagecoach from the wild west. What's not to love?

I went off to college in Maryland. Where they have no Wells Fargos. I think I lasted a year before I started a student account with Bank of America. I figured, it's Bank of America, if I move somewhere else it will still be in America and I'll be fine. It is after all in both California and Maryland. My favorite part of BoA? Their Save the Change plan, which rounds up every purchase and puts the difference in your savings account. For example, if you spend $3.75 at the store, BoA will automatically transfer $0.25 into your savings account. It makes putting money into your savings account really easy.

Fast forward a few years, and I went to grad school in Louisiana. There are no Bank of Americas in Louisiana, at least none within 100 miles of Baton Rouge. After living here over two years I figured it was time to open an account here. Mainly so I would actually be able to deposit checks into my account. The goal would be to find a bank that is actually in both California and Louisiana. Turns out, there are none! Seriously. I decided to go with Chase, which is fairly big here. In hopes that if I ever move to a new state they will have either Bank of America or Chase there. We'll see...

~Shoshanah

Weekend Recap

It was warm and pretty and sunny all week long. Which of course means it rained ALL weekend. Which left me trapped in the apartment and unable to lay out. I tried to make the best of it, and attempted productiveness. Let's see... I did the dishes. Put away the laundry that has been sitting folded on the couch since when i did it last Sunday. I cleaned up and organized in "the big closest" aka the second bedroom. I created my blogroll. I even scrapbooked a little!
I will admit that I am not the best scrapbooker and don't really do it that often. Hence the reason I am still working on my scrapbook from my France trip in 2005. Almost 4 years ago! (And yes this it the third time I posted pictures of this France trip in the past 4 days. I'm not normally so obsessed.) I am hoping to have this scrapbook done soon. I'll put a goal of the end of the year? Maybe? I am making progress. Honestly, I only scrapped the Chateu D'If on today. The couscous one was made a few weeks ago. I just never posted it on here.

All I've pretty much ate all weekend is a box of Sugar Babies. I bought them for the movies on Friday. And whenever I've gotten hungry I've eaten a few. There's only 4 left. I guess eating them over the weekend is better then eating them ALL at the movies on Friday.

I did eat actual food this weekend too. Yesterday, the Boy was at a card tournament all day. So I made tortellini. He isn't really a big fan of stuffed pastas.
It was Archer Farm's porcini mushroom tortellini. I tried to eat only one plate. But wound up eating the whole 2.5 servings package last night. Yikes! And of course this weekend's movie review.

The Reader
I would say I enjoyed this movie, but it's not really a movie you can say you enjoyed. I looked up reviews of this movie and a lot of people don't like it because it "falsified history." That it made the Nazi seem like the good guys. But I don't think that's quite it.

I think more of what it is, is that it makes you think about what makes a person good and what makes a person bad. Hannah, Kate Winslet's character, is first shown to be a good person. (Or as much of a good person she can be having and affair with a teenager.) But then you find out she worked at a concentration camp and did evil things. It makes you want to think of her as an evil person. But yet, we fell in love with her, so how can she be evil?

On the other hand you have Michael, who is portrayed as a good guy. But yet, he fell in love with a murderer. The whole movie he struggles with doing the right thing. But if the right thing for him is helping a killer, then is it the right thing? How can he be a good person, if he does something good for someone who is a bad person?

There were things I didn't like. Her "big secret." Not so much of a secret. Watch the trailer and think about the title to the movie you could probably figure it out. Also the fact the she sacrifices so much in order to keep it a secret seems a little far fetched.

I do think Kate Winslet acted very well in it. And yes, I did cry at parts. Don't see it if you're expecting an uplifting movie. But if you want thought provoking this is it.

My shows are now starting (Amazing Race, Desperate Housewives, Brother & Sisters), so I will be signing off.

Blogroll!

I have officially added a blogroll. I can't promise that I rememered to list everything I read. But if you think I should be reading you, leave a comment and I will check you out!

~Shoshanah

P.S. An actual entry will be coming soon. Stay tuned!

In honor of Pi day

Taken in Avignon, France May, 2005

Frozen Thursday

Is a alluded earlier, I have officially decided to name these Thursday night posts Frozen Thursdays. Because, A it is Thursday (duh). And B it is the day I allow myself to indulge in my favorite frozen meals. Normally Kashi or Amy's but if anyone has any suggestions I am open to try.

Kashi Pesto Primavera
First all of the Kashi pasta dishes are my favorite, and the pesto is my favorite of those. Partly because I love pesto. But also I love the vegetables that come with this one. I love peas and love red peppers. I can be picky about carrots, but I even love the carrots that come with this.


And for dessert Molten Chocolate Cake
Again one of the Betty Crocker Warm Delights. I think this is actually my favorite flavor of those too. (I'm kind of caramel obsessed.) It's hard to tell, but this is actually a mini. So only 150 calories. It's funny I don't need the bigger size, or even want to eat the 2nd one after finishing this (They come in a double pack). However, I like the bigger ones better because they are more gooey-er in the middle. I guess I could probably get that effect by heating it up longer. Maybe I'll try next time.

~Shoshanah

P.S. If someone ever ruined my engagement surprise like the Chief did to Meredith on Grey's tonight I would be SO f-ing mad. OMFG.

The NEW New Facebook

How does everyone feel about the new facebook? I'm still somewhat undecided. I am ridiculously noisy so I kind of like knowing what everybody is up to RIGHT now. But there are specific items I want to read, and I can't figure out how to do that. Or if you currently can. My perfect newsfeed you would be able to set up your own personal filter. Say show me photo stories, video stories, and status updates. But nothing else. You can currently filter JUST photos, or JUST videos. But not multiple applications. Or any other way to do it would be to filter out certain applications. Also certain things don't have an actual filter. (Like Statuses... Satusi? I'm not really sure what the multiple of status is.)

I do like facebook for the warning that the home page would be changing. They did this also when the implemented the "New" facebook. (Does this make it now the NEW New facebook.) I guess they are learning from when they implemented the newsfeed without warning.

I am sure facebook will make the new homepage better and work out the kinks. And within time, we'll all ever forget it was any different.

~Shoshanah

P.S. I will be posting later tonight, my weekly Frozen Thursday post! I just came up with that name, and I like it!

Photolicious Stairs

Anais at Through Green Eyes tagged me to do a photolicious post. The way it works is to open your 6th photo folder and post your 6th photo in the folder. So I pulled up the 6th folder, and took out the 6th photo and came up with this:
The staircase in my apartment. I first posted this photo on February 7, 2009 when I posted a photo tour of the new apartment here. Not the most exciting of pictures, I know.

Since that picture was taken I have actually done a little decorating on the staircase. I had some wooden picture frames I had bought from Ikea a year or two ago. I hadn't unpacked all of my photos when I put them up, so I didn't have a lot of possibilities, buy here are the photos currently hanging on my staircase.
This is one of my favorite pictures of myself. It was taken when I was on my 3 week intensive study abroad coarse in France. This was summer 2005. If you look closely you will see a sign on the Eiffel Tower saying Paris 2012. At that point Paris was one of the finalists for the 2012 Olympics. Unfortunately, London won out and that is where the 2012 summer Olympics win be. And the cotton candy? That was TWICE the size of my head. I paid 2.5 euros for that.
This was summer 2007. This is the Boy holding his newborn niece at the hospital. I am a mess, because this was during the summer when I was a camp counselor, and this was taken after a long day of work.
This was taken summer 2006. This is me, my brother and Bon Jovi. Yeah... I would like to say the man reason this is on the wall is because it is me and my brother. But yeah...
This was also taken summer 2006. This was about a week before I moved from California to Louisiana. This is me and my friend Liz. We've been friends since 2nd. Not my longest friendship though, I have another friend who I've known since birth, but haven't decided on which picture of us to hang, yet. It will happen eventually.

Getting back to the point of this post, I was tagged. I guess this is probably the easy way out, but let me know if you want to do a photolicious post. Leave a message in the comments and I will link to your photo entry! I guess first come first serve? We'll see...

Happy Purim

Today is the Jewish holiday Purim. And I will admit I am not really that observant, and while I knew Purim was coming, I had forgotten until I saw my facebook friends mentioning it.

Purim celebrates the story of Esther, which I think is part of the Christian Bible (it is isn't it?). Like most all Jewish holidays, we are celebrating the fact the someone wanted to kill all the Jews but failed, and the Jewish people survived. The main characters of the story are Mordechai (Esther's Uncle) who is the hero who saved the Jews and Haman the "bad guy" who wanted to kill all the Jews. Every year when they tell the story of Purim you are supposed to cheer when Mordechai is mentioned on boo when Haman is. The way to correctly celebrate Purim is to drink enough wine so that you when you hear the name Haman you can't remember if you are supposed to cheer or boo. O yes, us Jews know how to celebrate. (Of coarse you are also supposed to give baskets of food to the poor called Mishloach manot so they can celebrate too, but the drinking part is far more exciting).

Like all holidays (Jewish or not) food is always a big part. And the big Purim food are Hamantashen. These are cookies in the shape of triangles (supposedly the shape of Haman's hat) that are filled with jelly or chocolate. I was thinking of making some this year. But didn't quite get the ball rolling in time. I did a few years ago. But not this year. If you're curious here is a picture of some.


The other big part of Purim is dressing up. Think of it as a Jewish Halloween. Growing up, my Hebrew school used to have a Purim Carnival, where we could wear our costumes. My favorite game was always the cake walk. Kinda of like musical chairs, but when the music stopped you where on a certain number. They would then pull a number out of a hat, and that person would win a cake. No wonder I liked it, you got to win a cake!

The other big attraction was the Haunted House. Each grade was in charge of a certain booth or station, and every year the confirmation class was in charge or creating and running the haunted house. It's funny, I have FAR more memories of looking forward to being old enough to run the haunted house than I actually do the year I got to do the haunted house. When I had the chance, I think I actually spent more time taken tickets outside of it than anything else. It's funny, even though it already happened, part of me forgets and STILL looks forward to when its my turn. Anyone else ever feel that way about things?

~Shoshanah

Photo from Flickr originally uploaded by koshercom

Spring Forward

I really love spring daylight savings. I just love how light it stays so late in the day. Yes, it was rough waking up this morning. But work today FLEW by. I had a hard time believing it was already 5, because it so felt at least an hour earlier!

* * * *

Last night I wound up eating the leftover lettuce from
Saturday Night. There are still leftover beans and meat, but I figured the lettuce would go bad faster. I normally don't use actually salad dressing and just use oil olive and vinegar but not last night.

See those huge chunks of feta in the salad? I did not add that. That was IN the dressing. So amazing. It was called Cindy's Kitchen's Greek with Feta and Black Olive Dressing. And its actual listed as a marinade too. I might have to use it like that. I did have it with a piece of focaccia, which is officially gone (it didn't last more than 24 hours in the apartment). But apart from the bread, it was just lettuce and dressing.

Not quite my normal salad. Normally I will buy the baby lettuce mix and top it with fruit and cheese. My fav is pears and Parmesan. Anyone else have a favorite salad combination?

~Shoshanah

P.S. I wasn't planning on watching Dancing with the Stars to night. I'm not a big fan. But when I heard Melissa was going to be on it... well now I HAVE to watch. I just want to make sure she's doing OK. (Prime scheduling on ABC's part by adding her)

Taco Night

Last night went as planned. The Boy got home from worked a little after 3, and then we headed to the theater for a 4:15 matinee of Watchmen. Surprisingly, this was a lot of people's plans because the theater was awfully full for a Saturday Matinee.

Not having read the comics I wasn't really sure what to expect. I did like how doing the opening credits they gave kind of a montage of the history of the watchmen. But even so, I had a hard time trying to figure out who was who.
"Wait, is this one the older one?"
"Are they dating?"
"So one is the mother one if the daughter?"
I think eventually I got it figured out. I did like it overall. As I said, I wasn't really sure what to expect, but it did live up to my expectations.

The boy, having actual read the comics actually had read the comics (which was quite helpful during the above questions). He said they didn't really deviate from the ending which he was happy about. But the book and the movie have a somewhat different feel to them.

There was one part I said something along the lines of, "Do they Watchmen have any super powers?" To which he replied, "That's the whole point of the movie." So good for as to being able to pick up on that.

Overall, I would recommend the movie to most anyone. Although the one demographic I wouldn't recommend it to? That would be babies? But that didn't stop a woman and her husband from walking in with a stroller with a BABY in it. A baby who cried during th sex scenes? Seriously? If you can't afford a babysitter, then don't go to the movie? And if you HAVE to go to the movies with a baby, don't take them to see a rated R movie!

Coming out of the theater three hours later in the dark, we had one more stop before we could make tacos. We had forgotten to buy lettuce. So we stopped at the store. Really dangerous idea. Come out with salsa, feta, salad dressing, beef sausage, garlic and herb focaccia, and of course lettuce.

But home we went. We were making tacos, and when I think crunchy tacos, so I fried my shells.


The Boy however wanted his soft, which made life easy. The B wanted to buy the taco spices, but I said no. I didn't use them growing up, and we didn't need to use them either. Instead we just seasoned the meat with onions, Tabasco, and Tony's (the Louisiana cooking spice that people here will put in most anything). Overall, it turned out pretty good.


Don't ya think?

And in case you are wondering about the focaccia? Well here it is:


Paired with the sausage also purchase when the only really need was lettuce. And Dubliner cheese. Purchased at the previous shopping trip. Another food I feel in love with in high school, and then stop eating after going a bit overboard.

Tonight the plan should be much more low-key. The boy is working, so my night will probably be sent folding clothes, watching TV, and eating leftovers. Sounds like a plan to me!

Watchmen photo from Flickr originally uploaded by elblogazodelcomic.
All others taken by me

Saturday Rambles...

So the original plan was to go see Watchmen last night. Then we decided it would be better if we waited to today and went to see a late Matinee. The Boy is still at work, but when he gets back we're planning on hitting up a a 4:15 showtime.

So instead we decided to go to the grocery store. There isn't a really good grocery store close to us. There is one, and I can't remember the name of it, but it always seems a little ghetto. Then we live pretty much in between a Whole Foods and a Fresh Market, both of which are about 5 mins away. But in an effort to conserve money we went to Target. Because in Louisiana Target's have a full on grocery inside. I was not allowed to go to the Target side of the store, to save both time and money, but nonetheless a good deal of damage was done.

Now some of this was already there, but a good portion was bought last night. My favorite part? The can of re-fried beans in the center for tacos tonight.

For the rest of the low-key evening? Well, the boy's sister called and asked if we could babysit while they went to a movie. They actually did go see Watchmen last night. They went to like a 9pm showing, so by the time they go here the Boy's niece was out, and slept for most of the time she was here.

This morning about two hours after the boy left for work I rolled out of bed and made myself a cup of coffee. And had a Nurtigrain bar, which was purchased last night.
I went through a big Nutrigrain phase in high school. And know I do like them, but by the time there's only 1 or 2 left in the box I get tired of eating them. I had to buy these those because they were a new flavor. Blackberry. Not to bad. Although nothing will ever live up to Peach Nutrigrains, which they stopped making.

Since it was actually warm and sunny out today I made it out to the pool.
Well it was a little cool when the clouds blocked out the sun, it was far better than laying out in the middle of summer here. Where you are covered in sweat after 10 minutes of sitting still.
I got about a little over an hour, before the wind starting picking up and I came in. I'm still wearing my bathing suit, which 8 months later still smells suspiciously like the Dead Sea. I'm not too sure that smell will ever fully go away...

So the plan for tonight: Watchmen and Tacos! I'm excited!

Thursday

Because it is Thursday after all...

Amy's Tamale Verde Black Bean
The rice is OK. Not really a talking point. But the Tamale itself is really good. The Verde sauce is really good, I practically licked the plate. The corn was also soft and yummy. The best part though was the filling. I honestly forgot until halfway through that there wasn't any meat in it.

I have no Warm Delight, which is probably a good thing. Instead I'm having a Cadberry Creme Egg. Yum! I love these things! I'm so glad Easter is still a month away so I have a month still to enjoy them!

~Shoshanah

Green and Gold Forever

I had a completely different post in mind today, but after being on facebook... well, it took a turn. I do apologize, honestly, but I couldn't help myself.

I have an immense amount of what we called at my college, "home pride." If you asked me about where I was from I could go on and on and on. And if you threw my high school into the mix, well you were just asking for trouble. To start with a ridiculous amount of celebrities went to my high school. Let's see, there's Cameron Diaz, Billie Jean King, Chase Utley, Snoop Dogg, Tony Gwynn, and more.

Of course it's also a popular place to film movies. I know when I was their a friend a I stole a doughnut from the craft services table of the movie The United States of Leland staring Ryan Gosling. Also my drama class got to watch them film part of A Time for Dancing staring Shane West, Larisa Oleynik, and Shiri Appleby. And then there was the time after I graduated and I picked my brother up from high school and they had changed the name on the front in order to film Coach Carter staring Samuel L. Jackson. Haven't heard of those movies? How about American Pie, The Craft and even the movie Fired Up that's currently in theaters. All of those were filmed there too.

Plus they filmed commercials there too. I remember skipping soccer practice on day to watch Tiger Woods film a Target commercial.

Plus it has one of the top high school sports programs in the country. I know there's more football players from Poly than any other high school in the country. Our baseball field is the Tony Gywnn Field named after Tony Gywnn from the San Diego Padres.

Least you think academics are left behind, Poly has been on Newsweek top 100 public high schools numerous times. I know we were (and probably still are) the only school to be one of Newsweek's top academic schools in the country and one of Sports Illustrated's top Sports Schools of the country.

So what exactly brought on the awfully ego-centric post? Well a link to the football team's website. It's longbeachpolyfootball.com. Not hard to forget right. Well turns out Snoop Dogg actually recorded a Long Beach Poly song. How funny is that. I bet there's not a lot of high schools out there who can say they have a rap song.

~Shoshanah

P.S. Did I mention Poly's music department has won a Grammy?

Working Lunch

I actually had a really productive lunch break today. Much more than when I normally just grab a smoothie at Smoothie King.

First I stopped at the bank to deposit a check. I have Chase in Louisiana (which of course is a long story, I promise to tell that sometime too). A Chase you had to fill out a whole deposit slip. And the outside of the envelope which had the same information in it. I've taken to leaving extras in the car so I can fill it out before I drive up and keep people waiting in line. So everything was filled out and I drove up to the drive through ATM. Turns out Chase has got rid of deposit slips! (At least this branch has.) You literally got to put the check and any cash you had directly into the machine. The best though was on your receipt they actually printed a copy of the check! I thought that was really nifty.

The I went to Quizno's for actual lunch. I actually ran into the mother and grandmother of a girl I used to watch at after school care there. I decided to eat a Chicken Cantina Sammie meal with Salsa Flavored Sun Chips. I love those sammies! Not so much a fan of the salsa flavored sun chips though. I really like the normal one those. I ate my food and read about two chapters of my books. Then left without even having a refill on my Dr. Pepper! (Go Me!)

Next stop was Walgreen's. I Bought two boxes of Kleenex. (When I say Kleenex I do mean Kleenex Brand Kleenex.) The only had the anti-viral kind, which I don't normally buy, but I needed more. I was out of Kleenex at both my desk at work and at home.

I also picked up some hair ties too. Normally I buy the rainbow colored ones. Just because they are fun and exciting. I figured it was time to grow up and actually bought all brown ones. Not sure I'm such a big fan that...

I went back to work, and actually wound up clocking back in 1 minute early! Not bad for a 59-Minute lunch!

~Shoshanah

And yes, I needed to get one last post about this season's Bachelor in. I was really proud of Melissa that she wasn't there last night. I would have liked to see her. But I think She made the right decision.

I think Jillian will be an amazing Bachelorette (which was pretty much a given to happen). I can totally see he making them all dress hot dogs. lol.

And I do have to say that Jason and Molly did look really happy together. Jason literally couldn't keep her hands off of her. And so I am glad they are happy. And really do hope they make it through!

The Bachelor Reflections

So The Bachelor last night was exactly what the spoilers said it would be. He proposed to Melissa. Then on the ATFR he broke up with Melissa and decided he wanted to be with Molly. I was at least glad the spoilers got some of it wrong.

They said after he proposed to Melissa they called her parents. That her parents didn't approve and that's why he was crying on the balcony.

Wrong! He did get to call Melissa's parents. But before the decision. And the crying was when he broke things off with Molly.

Now maybe this is just me being optimistic but I really really don't think this was staged. I do think he was definitely an ass to Melissa. And prob should have tried things was longer than 6 weeks. I do get that he wasn't able to stop thinking about Molly. But I can't see how after breaking up with Melissa and starting things with Molly he'd just be able to stop thinking about Melissa either. And I think if the situation had been reversed and he proposed to Molly he wouldn't have been able to stop thinking about Melissa.

I do think he kind of dug himself into a hole before the season started. During all the promos for the show he kept saying how happily engaged he was. So everyone knew he got engaged. Everyone knew he was "happy." It was only when the show started to air things changed. (Maybe that's what it was. Maybe he saw himself with Molly on the show and was like Wow. Who knows)

Moving on. At that point ABC had a dilemma on their hands. Sure him and Melissa could have just broken up and never had an ATFR special. They've done that before with Travis and I think Matt too, right? But he had already said they were happily engaged in January. And not showing a post finale special would only make people wonder. But they still could have done it.

I guess the biggest obstacle was that he wanted to start things up with Molly. And again, there have been other Bachelors that dated the other girls from their show. Didn't Lorenzo do that? But I'm pretty sure Jason is the most watched Bachelor in a long time, if not ever. So clearly, ABC didn't want to do nothing. They saw they could get a ratings boost by airing this whole fiasco. Which is what they did. I think think they told Jason who to pick. I don't think the whole thing was staged. I don't think he was talking to Molly while he was dating Melissa. But I do think Jason was an ass for only giving her 6 weeks. And I do think ABC definitely took advantage of their situation, which was their right. This was a television show after all.

I'm really curious to see how tonight will go. I hope Melissa refuses to see Jason. I know if I were her I would. Also knowing that it has been 6 weeks since last night's special and that Jason and Melissa had 6 weeks together it will be interesting to see where Jason and Molly are. (I found the time details out from Chris Harrison blog. So I guess we'll see what happens.

~Shoshanah

Musical Chairs

I got to work today. Clocked in. Put my purse in my drawer. Went to sit down... and noticed my chair was missing! No I didn't try to sit down on nothing and fall. There was a chair there, but it wasn't MY chair. It was tiny and small and had no handles and made me feel like a little kid. And my trash can was on my desk. And someone had put trash in it! (A Reese's Peanut Butter Cup wrapper. Even at 8 am this made me want one.)

I was actually quite offended. That they valued me so little that they took my chair away and gave me a "baby" chair too. I was actually thinking of "stealing" someone elses char for my own, when I heard one of my co-workers saw, "This isn't my chair!"

It seemed they must have had the carpets cleaned over the weekend and moved everything out of the way. And didn't pay attention to where each chair came from so put them back randomly. Luckily they did this a row at a time so we only had about 10 chairs to sort out. One person had left her jacket on a chair. check. Anyone had a chair covered her hair. check. Two people had chairs without armrests. check check.

So I was able to get rid of my miniature chair. I wound up with a chair, while not the exact one I had before at least the same model. After playing with the levers I finally go myself situation to a high and back position that felt comfortable. With all this drama I forgot to get coffee till 30 mins after I had been at work.

But moving on to more important things. The Bachelor finale! Starts. In. Twenty. Minutes. I am really excited. Although, I feel like it has lost some of the suspense, with the spoilers I've read. I'm not going to share them here in case you haven't seen them. But I really hope that isn't what happens. I'm hoping that he decides to get back with Deanna. That could be a big twist right?

So I guess we'll see. I'm crossing my fingers!

~Shoshanah

P.S. And that whole big pinkie ring controversy. It can't be that hard to take an image and flip it so you see a mirror image. Thus moving the ring to the right or left hand right?

Unsuspecting Sunday Afternoon

Today started out quite promising. The Boy's parents were buying a new couch. And thus we were going to inherit their old couch. So he left around 9-ish this morning to pick it up. I was in charge of cleaning the living room (mostly check) and doing laundry (not even close to a check).

So around 11-ish or so, there's a knock on the door and the couch has arrived. The boy, his father, and one of his friends start unloading the couch. I love outside, noticing only one car and the following conversation ensues.

"You were able to get all parts of the couch in one truck?"

The Boy replies, "No my truck is on the side of the interstate."

"With the rest of the couch?"

So they left and went back to The Boy's truck. Unloaded the couch from one truck to the other, while stopped at the side of the interstate. And brought it here all here. Our living is over halfway full with an L-shaped couch. And a pink armchair. Which is currently hanging it with no where to go. It might wind up in the second bedroom, aka the large closet. But moving on...

The boy and I went back to the car and waited 30 mins for a tow-truck. This was my first time ever stopped on the side of the interstate. Not so much a fun experience. Especially when I have a tiny little car and every time a huge truck drives by is shakes everything like crazy.

The tow truck arrives, and gets the Boy's tuck hooked up, which gets towed to the Chevy dealership. Which is closed because it is Sunday. We unload everything from the truck, (since it is a 98 and ridiculously old and he was already planning on buying a new one). I found a bag of Lays potato chips in the car and proceeded to eat them as my lunch. Then we head over to a Mazda dealership to see if they had any really good deals.

Not so much unfortunately. So we headed back to the Chevy dealership, since it didn't look like he would be buying a car the next day or something. We put his car key in the drop box, so they could look and it and see how much it would cost.

Then we drove to the Boy's parents' house to pick up one of their cars. While there I ate a Cinnamon graham cracker and 4 or 5 pretzels to add to my lunch. He drove their car, I drove my car. We stopped at a gas station. The Boy got gas. I bought a Vanilla Coke (Heaven! Remind me to blog about my ups and downs with Vanilla Coke sometimes) and Sour Patch Extremes (Overall not too extreme).

Then we went back to the Chevy dealership. The Boy had forgotten his LSU parking pass inside the car. Luckily his parents has an extra key (he was in the drop box, remember).

Then we stopped by another Mazda dealership. And finally made it back to the apartment by 3-ish. And there went 3 hours of my Sunday. Fun times.

~Shoshanah

P.S. Props to anyone who knows where the title to this post is from.