What A Weekend

We so often do the same thing (or the same variation of the same thing) every weekend, that even a small change can be quite exciting. (Don't get me wrong, I love a normal average weekend, but changing things up a bit is a nice change of pace.)

On Friday night one of my good friends from high school was in town (Yes, my high school in California). She's going to be starting law school in New Orleans and is starting to move into her apartment. But she was up in Baton Rouge for the day so we met up for dinner.

We went to The Chimes which is an LSU mainstay. It's just off-campus and normally crowed with students. (A few years ago they did open a 2nd location on the other side of town.) Amazingly we got a table without a wait, almost unheard of for a Friday night, although we were eating early. We wound up splitting a plate of fries, I had a hamburger, and she had a boca burger. I'm really happy she's going to be living here, and I'm looking forward to having a some good weekends down in New Orleans with her soon.

After dinner I met up with the boy for a movie. Want to know what we saw? Well, I'll leave you in suspense for now. But I'm willing to take your guesses!

Saturday night one of the boy's high school friends was in town. (The boy went to high school in Baton Rouge, so that's a little less out of the ordinary.) We met up with him, and one more of the boy's friends for dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. This is the restaurant we always go to when we meet the boy's friends. They like it because we can play trivia while we're hanging out. But the food? I'm not a big fan of it. I wound up getting a chicken caesar wrap, which wasn't very good. The boy and I also split an appetizer of mozzarella sticks, which were A LOT better than the wrap I had.

After dinner we all went to play pool. Well the boys played pool, and I sat around watching. I don't really enjoy playing, and I'm not very good. That's probably the main reason I don't love playing. Although the boy has done his best to teach me and I am doing better.

At the pool hall I did take my one picture of the weekend. (Yes, I know a bit of a blog fail.)
It's the Midori Sour I ordered. Its one of the four drinks I always wind up ordering when I go out.

Overall, I'd say the change of pace made for a great time. And what's on for the rest of the day? I'm thinking of making dinner? Maybe a movie? I'll let you know! Hope everyone else is having (or had) a great weekend as well!

Chicken Curry

Sukhi's Chicken Curry
I picked up yet another of the Sukhi's frozen meals at Fresh Market. I've been a big fan of them in the past, and was hoping this would be yet another smart choice. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out that way.

My main pros and cons and the same one I have for most of their meals. Their naan is really yummy and amazing. But the actual package isn't really a meal. You're only getting meat and bread. I think their products could be easily improved if they also had a bit of a side something even as easy as rice. Or maybe just a few vegetables mixed in.

As for the actual meal itself, I wasn't a huge fan of the actual chicken. The pieces seemed to be too big, and I think it they were smaller they would be able to get more of the sauce. Also the actual quality of the chicken wasn't amazing. The sauce was good and there was a lot of each. Which was good, because I was able to use the naan to soak it up. Although it wasn't a very spicy curry, and I have had curries that have been a lot better.

All in all it could have been worse. Although I probably won't go out of my way to try this exact product again. Although I am still a fan of Suhki's (partly because I can't stop thinking about their samosas!).

And for dessert? Well it is a Frozen Thursday after all!Haagen Daz Mango sorbet
This easily made up for the letdown of the dinner. I'm still amazed I haven't gone back for seconds on it yet!

~Shoshanah

Dead Until Dark

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
I finished reading this on my lunch hour today. I did enjoy reading it, however I don't think it quite held up to my expectations. I think I've heard so many good things about it (both the book and the tv show) that I was really expecting it to be amazing. I wanted it to be the type of book that I could not put down. That I had to be able to finish it, and could not do so until I fell asleep. But at least for me it didn't quite do it. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it, and still want to read the next one. I was just hoping it could have been better.

What were my thoughts about the book itself? I liked that in the first chapter vampires were introduced as a given. They weren't something most people ever say, and most people didn't like them. But still, in the world the story takes place in everyone knows that vampires are real and do exist in the real world. I thought that was an interesting twist on the vampire genre. (Although to be honest, besides the Twilight books I haven't really read any vampire books.)

Something else that I liked was that it takes place in Louisiana. I won't say I was able to identify with it more because I live in Louisiana. But it was still fun since I do live here now.

Like I said before I still do want to read the rest of the series. I would also love to watch the series. Except for the fact that we don't get HBO. I guess I'll just have to watch it on dvd someday. I know there's other people who've read the books. What are your thoughts on this first one? And I'd love to hear reassurance that the books do get better further on!

~Shoshanah

You Don't Sit on the Baby

My first summer living in Louisiana I spent as a camp counselor. It was what I did throughout most of high school and college, and I wanted one my summer as a counselor before I ended grad school. I had a great summer, and at the end one of the parent's asked if I'd been willing to babysit. "Of course!" After all, who doesn't like a few extra dollars.

A few weeks after the summer ended they called to see if I could watch the kids. They lived not that far from my apartment at the time so I had no trouble finding the place. The night went really smoothly. I made frozen pizza. The kids watched one of the Air Bud movies on TV. They even went to sleep pretty easily.

The trouble only started when the parents got home. I was giving them a report of the night, and they asked how much I charged. Well, that far more complicated than it seemed. I hadn't actually babysat since high school. Back in high school I used to charge $10 an hour (which was even on the low side compared to some of my friends). But when I was in high school I was 16 or 17 when I was baby-sitting, and at the time I was 22. So based on the fact I was older I would guess I should charge slightly more, and one would think in general babysitting rates have gone up over the past 6 years or so.

However, when I babysat in high school I was in California. But, now I was in Louisiana. And things cost more in California than they do in Louisiana. Minimum wage is less in California than it is in Louisiana. So I should be charging less than I used to in California.

I figured that since I should be charging more on one opinion and less on the other opinion, if I kept my same rate I'd be safe. I really did try to avoid saying anything, "I'm fine with whatever you normally pay your baby-sitters," but that wasn't working. So I finally sucked it up and said, "I charge $10 an hour."

I pretty much completely overestimated the going rate for a babysitter in Louisiana. Turns out they normally paid $7 an hour for a babysitter. I told them $7 would be fine, but they insisted. Then there was the fact they didn't have enough cash to pay me for $10 an hour. Luckily (or unluckily depending on how you look at it) they were able to find their checkbook and wrote me a check for $10 an hour. And let's just say they never actually called me again to babysit. I'm guess they went back to a babysitter that was at least a little cheaper than me.

So I'm curious, did you babysit when you were growing up? Do you remember what the going rate for then? Or maybe you currently have kids? If that's the case what do you normally pay your babysitters? Maybe we can come to some sort of nationwide (or maybe even worldwide) average!

~Shoshanah

Sounds Like an Amazing Birthday Present

Anyone who knows me well will tell you I was am a pretty big Backstreet Boys fan. I'm not as big as I used to be in high school and even most of college, but that is mainly due to the fact they haven't had a lot of albums since then. I am a big enough fan that I follow backstreetboys on twitter. And ok, I might follow nickcarter as well. But since I follow them I know that the Backstreet Boys are planning a pretty awesome birthday present for me. Turns out their new album This is Us comes out on October 6, less than a week before my birthday!

And of course you can't have a new album without a single! The single's called Straight Through My Heart (Ummm yeah, its a Backstreet song, so of course heart HAS to be in the title.) I haven't heard it on the radio yet, but hopefully I will soon! But of course there is youtube!
Anyone else want to share their thoughts? I think that the new song is pretty awesome! (of course I do) I know some of you out there used to be Backstreet fans back in the day. Anyone else think they'd buy the new album?

~Shoshanah

Are They Really Funny People

Funny People
I haven't been hearing the best things about this movie, so I wasn't really expecting to be amazed. I thought it would be the type of movie where all the funny parts were in the preview and the movie itself was a bit of a letdown. But maybe because of these low expectations I really enjoyed the movie.

The movie itself was done in a really interesting way. The actual plot was really serious and emotional, and not very funny. But interspersed the entire movie were stand up routines. The routine weren't randomly there, they did still fit chronologically into the story which I liked. But the stand-up routines were the scenes with all the jokes. And while I was afraid all of the good jokes would be in the previews, this was not actually the case. In fact, there were a few jokes from the previews that didn't actually make it into the movie.

The other amusing part of the movie were all the cameos. First all of the random film featuring Adam Sandler's character all featured other actors. Sometimes you say actual clips of these movies, sometime you just saw the previews. Then there were several cameos of comedians playing themselves. I knew who most of the big name comedians were (and even a few musicians), but there were some who I could tell were I was supposed to recognize, but I had no idea who there were.

I think though the best part of the movie were the two little girls. They're actually the same girls from Knocked Up, which makes sense since they are the daughters of Judd Aptow and Leslie Mann. So we all know where they get their comedic acting skills from. They two girls (Maude Apatow and Iris Apatow) had slightly bigger parts than the ones they played in Knocked Up and I thought they stole the show.

So my advice, is don't listen to the critics. This movies is actually a lot better than what everyone else is saying!

~Shoshanah

P.S. While we're talking about movies, I won my first giveaway ever last weekend. Miss Sweet Tea from Sweet Tea Diaries is sending me a copy of Julie & Julia, and I can't wait to read it! I've already been looking forward to seeing the movies, and now I'm looking forward to reading the book. So, thank you Miss Sweet Tea!

Happy 2nd Birthday!

No, not to me. Today was the boy's niece's 2nd birthday (it was her actual birthday as well as her party). The boy of course had to work, so I headed over on my own. The party theme was Minnie Mouse, so there was a Minnie Mouse cake as well as a bunch of other snacks and food. They actually tried to buy a Minnie Mouse cake at a bakery, but every bakery said they couldn't sell Minne cakes due to copyright infringement. They made the cake themselves, and I thought it turned and pretty good and was really yummy! I would post a picture for everyone, but I forgot my camera!

I had charged my camera last night so it would be ready for the party, but I left it on the charger! I didn't realize I had forgotten it until I tried to take it out for a picture.

The fact that I didn't have a camera was a little disappointing, but everything else was pretty good. Well, everything else except the weather. Right when I pulled up to the house it started drizzling. And by the time I got inside it was pretty much a downpour, so we were all trapped inside. And of course the rain stopped just after everyone left.

It's so crazy how old his niece is now! I was there when she was born, and its a a bit surreal to think she's 2 now. She's actually talking and making sense! I had a blast playing with her and a some of the other kids throughout most of the party. One of the little boys kept grabbing my hand and making me walk laps around the house with him. And being around all these kids makes me want to have my one. Until of course the rational part of my mind kicks in and tells me I am nowhere near ready for that. Of course it didn't help that I was the only one at the party that didn't have a kid.

After the party was over I hung out with the rest of the family waiting for the boy. He stopped by after he got of work, so he got to have a little time with his niece as well. We had the birthday girl wait until he got their to open our present. I did actually take a picture of the present back at our apartment, so I do have at least one picture to share!
Besides the these two books, we also got her numbers book with dry-erase pages and a marker so you can write how many things are in each picture, a bubble mower, and a WordWorld Tiger, which is a tiger made out of the letters T-I-G-E-R. Each letter is magnetic so you can learn to associate the word with the animal. I think she was pretty happy with the presents we got her, she actually said Tiger and growled when she opened the Tiger. Overall, I think it was a pretty good Sunday!

~Shoshananh