My Betty Crocker baking experiences over the Thanksgiving weekend were..... multiple and devastating.
My first attempt at baking a freakin' apple pie ended with a burnt and butter-less pastry. Round Two seemed like it was going to be easier than prom night, until Ben came home and busted me for using a pre-mixed apple crisp concoction that expired in 2009. My bad. So I got my Betty Crocker buns in the car and hit up the Pick N Save for a pre-made pumpkin pie.
Sunday was a Turkey Day with my parents, Brianna, and Brianna's boyfriend (they started dating following our wedding, so I'm taking credit). Since we were hosting the little gathering at our place, I was in charge of making the turkey. After discussing with multiple individuals who know a thing or two about cooking, it was decided that I would make a turkey boob in the crock pot. Since the apple deserts had been a disappointment, I was pretty pumped to prove myself as a bonafide chef. Or at least a girl who can create something edible.
I purchased my turkey boob, defrosted it in the fridge for a day and a half as instructed, and seasoned it late Saturday night. I gently lowered the boob into the crock pot and gingerly put the cover in place. Tilting my head to one side, I felt a smile crawl onto my face as I watched the beginning of perfection. I could practically taste my success. Ben was busy picking out a movie for us to watch before going to bed, so with one final nod and smile at my masterpiece, I left the boob to simmer to its glorious finale.
The next morning, I woke up and feeling confused, politely asked Ben if he could smell the turkey. He responded that he in deed did not smell the turkey, and rolled out of bed to investigate. He quickly returned to the bedroom, looking like a mug shot. Apparently, after watching the movie, Ben shuffled around the apartment unplugging the vast assortment of Christmas lights and unplugged the crock pot as well. He was so panicky and upset about the lifeless and cold turkey boob in the crock pot that I couldn't even be upset. We drove over to Pick N Save (again) and adopted our second turkey boob. Ben was left with intense instructions on how to recreate my original masterpiece in 1/4 of the time as I headed out to work. Blah blah blah we ended up having turkey in time for dinner.
=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=
At Ben's family Turkey Day, THREE COUPLES stood up throughout dinner to announce that they were knocked up and expecting in May/June. His aunts and uncles kept looking at us, apparently waiting for a similar announcement from Ben & I. So I announced that I was planning on having a food baby and got seconds.
I am fully aware that it's startling and fantastic that I've kept a myself AND a pair of cats alive and functioning up until now... and that a tiny human depending on me probably isn't the greatest idea at this point.
"The Parent Rap"
So congrats to ya'll who are with child. I know what you did last September.
=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=
xoxo, b
11.30.2012
11.28.2012
black ops blogging
Right now, I am black ops blogging at work... as Justin Bieber sings softly over the sound system, whispering for me to meet him under the mistletoe.....
ooh Bieber, you tease.
====
My accomplishments for the day include (in no particular order): Finishing a venti Starbucks coffee. Black ops blog post. The things I do to feel alive! Singing along to the Christmas Biebs. Wearing my red high heels for a combined total of 37 minutes today.
xoxo. b
ooh Bieber, you tease.
====
My accomplishments for the day include (in no particular order): Finishing a venti Starbucks coffee. Black ops blog post. The things I do to feel alive! Singing along to the Christmas Biebs. Wearing my red high heels for a combined total of 37 minutes today.
xoxo. b
11.21.2012
gobble gobble lick lick
IT'S BASICALLY TURKEY DAY!!
yum
Today, I will get my Betty Crocker on, and try to create an edible apple pie masterpiece to bring to family turkey day. There is no middle ground here... it will either be a splendid surprise, or a god-awful disaster. Because that's how I roll.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
After my work meeting yesterday morning, I rushed home on a full tank of caffeinated coffee and attacked our apartment with Christmas decorations. It's great! But it's Christmas decorating... and in my humble but always correct opinion... that means you could always use a little more tinsel and twinkling lights. I'm unsupervised for the majority of the day today, and awake way too early thanks to Paris wiping kitty boogers on me until I woke up, so let's see what trouble I can get into.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
According to local sources, I will be doing my first ever Black Friday shopping with my sister within 48 hours of right now. Yikes.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
xoxo, b
yum
Today, I will get my Betty Crocker on, and try to create an edible apple pie masterpiece to bring to family turkey day. There is no middle ground here... it will either be a splendid surprise, or a god-awful disaster. Because that's how I roll.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
After my work meeting yesterday morning, I rushed home on a full tank of caffeinated coffee and attacked our apartment with Christmas decorations. It's great! But it's Christmas decorating... and in my humble but always correct opinion... that means you could always use a little more tinsel and twinkling lights. I'm unsupervised for the majority of the day today, and awake way too early thanks to Paris wiping kitty boogers on me until I woke up, so let's see what trouble I can get into.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
According to local sources, I will be doing my first ever Black Friday shopping with my sister within 48 hours of right now. Yikes.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
.JPG) |
| Nicole (aka SoCo) with a bottle of SoCo... |
11.18.2012
photo bomb like aaron
I saw this little ditty about Aaron Rogers being a photo-bomber.... it's like the man could not get any cooler if he tried. Photobombing is an underappreciated art
Packer win tonight against Detroit. Ugly win, but still a win, so I'll have it please and thank you.
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Ben, Nathan, and I saw the final Twilight movie tonight. Not necessarily a fan, but we felt like we might as well round out the saga by seeing the finale....
Movie Spoiler Alert... some vampire heads get ripped clean off their bodies. And I'm a horrible person who was obviously raised as a boy during my impressionable formative years, because I had a decent chuckle while the tween behind me had a decent emotional breakdown.
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Every so often, when there is a crazy huge orange moon, or some whack-a-do walks into work and says something ridiculous, or I notice some grocery store boy watching me pick out a cucumber... (seriously, they put those things on the bottom shelf and wait for you to come over and pick out a good one. dirty grocers )... cutting to the chase here....the idea that The Truman Show is actually taking place in current real-time as "The Britani Show" seems plausible.
I decided to mention this idea to Ben while we were driving to LM the other night. I think he expects me to think of obnoxious things like that and NOT keep them to myself, but just word vomit them all over the place like I usually do.
Anywho, Ben was completely unfazed, and apparently, the cats and Ben are all paid actors on "The Britani Show." He should stop enabling me.
But... I'm pretty sure that this absurd thought has crossed someone else's mind at some point.... right? No? Yeah, me neither.
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
xoxo, b
Packer win tonight against Detroit. Ugly win, but still a win, so I'll have it please and thank you.
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Ben, Nathan, and I saw the final Twilight movie tonight. Not necessarily a fan, but we felt like we might as well round out the saga by seeing the finale....
Movie Spoiler Alert... some vampire heads get ripped clean off their bodies. And I'm a horrible person who was obviously raised as a boy during my impressionable formative years, because I had a decent chuckle while the tween behind me had a decent emotional breakdown.
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Every so often, when there is a crazy huge orange moon, or some whack-a-do walks into work and says something ridiculous, or I notice some grocery store boy watching me pick out a cucumber... (seriously, they put those things on the bottom shelf and wait for you to come over and pick out a good one. dirty grocers )... cutting to the chase here....the idea that The Truman Show is actually taking place in current real-time as "The Britani Show" seems plausible.
I decided to mention this idea to Ben while we were driving to LM the other night. I think he expects me to think of obnoxious things like that and NOT keep them to myself, but just word vomit them all over the place like I usually do.
Anywho, Ben was completely unfazed, and apparently, the cats and Ben are all paid actors on "The Britani Show." He should stop enabling me.
But... I'm pretty sure that this absurd thought has crossed someone else's mind at some point.... right? No? Yeah, me neither.
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
xoxo, b
11.11.2012
half a chance
Last week, the idea of running a half marathon was presented to me.
I said hell no.
Then I thought about it, realized that the silly little 13.1 intimidated me, and immediately decided that I would make that thing my beyatch.
Long story short, I will be "running" (aka crawling on bloody knees with dirty tear-streaked face) a half marathon in Washington DC this March. As a heads up to those concerned with penciling things into their calendars: If the race is Saturday, March 16th... my untimely funeral should be the following Monday or Tuesday.
xoxo, b
I said hell no.
Then I thought about it, realized that the silly little 13.1 intimidated me, and immediately decided that I would make that thing my beyatch.
Long story short, I will be "running" (aka crawling on bloody knees with dirty tear-streaked face) a half marathon in Washington DC this March. As a heads up to those concerned with penciling things into their calendars: If the race is Saturday, March 16th... my untimely funeral should be the following Monday or Tuesday.
xoxo, b
11.02.2012
arizona
Our trip to Arizona was just a couple weeks ago, and it was GREAT!
Ben and I left the MKE airport at the un-godly hour of 7am.... and dropped into Phoenix by 9am local time. We shuttled over to the rental car location, where I promptly parked my buns on a bench to guard our bags and engage in some people watching while Ben checked in. He got the keys, and we headed into the parking structure to load into our rental car. When we finally found our rental car section of the massive structure, the little Hispanic man who greeted us took a look at our claims ticket and simply muttered "white one right there." WELL, the white one right there happened to be a 2013 Mustang CONVERTIBLE!!!! Ben was smiling like a fool because he knew all along, and I think he enjoys surprising me because of my strange reactions. I really tried to keep my shit together, but there's a slight possibility that I lost bladder control and started squeaking in excitement.
------
So we loaded into the Mustang, which had FIVE MILES TOTAL on it, as well as plastic protectors still scattered throughout the car. The owner's manual itself was still in shrink wrap. The glorious new car smell lingered in the air... It was a bucket list check mark: Convertible road trip.
We stopped at the Casa Grande Ruins on our way south to meet up with my 'rents. It was interesting and made me want to build forts like I did when I was younger.
We drove down to Oro Valley, which is right outside of Tucson, and met up with my parents at the condo they were renting. They were pretty excited to rock out in a convertible as well.
----
One day, we had a genius idea to put 5 people into a 4 person convertible and drive 2 hours to Tombstone, AZ. My mom, Brianna, and I squeezed into the backseat and regretted our decision 30 minutes into the trip. Whoever was sitting in the middle of the backseat ended up sitting on a hard hump, which caused butt cheek numbness. Silver lining: it was a couple hours in a car without wasting sunshine exposure.
When we stopped for lunch at a dusty little town along the way, my mom ended up getting herself stuck in the seat belt in the parking lot of a Quiznos. The jury is still out on exactly how she managed to get stuck with the belt unbuckled yet around her waist... wiggling up so she was standing in the backseat.... and climbing out of the car laughing/yelling at the rest of us that "this is not funny! THIS IS NOT FUNNY! I'M SERIOUS YOU GUYS!! HELP ME!!!!!"
Once we made it to Tombstone, we spent some time walking around. We found a silver mining tour, so we decided to hit up the saloon and then head back for some underground excitement. The Good Enough Mine tour was pretty cool, especially since we got to be decked out in hard hats. As we started to descend into the dark depths of the silver mine, Mama Steph became claustrophobic (I think she flashed back to her Quizno parking lot ordeal of before) and had to leave.
After the tour, and after finding my mom, both Brianna and I found silver rings as a souvenir of our AZ trip. Then we rode back in the convertible..... which is more fun when you have more room. I'm jus' saying.
----
Early in the morning on one of the days, Ben woke me up and asked if I wanted to go outside and watch the end of a meteor shower. It's widely known that I do not do mornings as well as other individuals, but Ben was so darn cute that I slid on my flippy flops and ventured outside with him. The desert sky was crisp and the stars were so bright... it was beautiful. We walked up a small hill on a dead end street and laid down on the pavement to watch for falling stars. We saw a couple before the sun started to ruin our view and we began to talk about going back inside. It was at this point that I heard what I originally thought to be a dried leaf blowing across the road. It was immediately following this thought that it occurred to me that we were in a desert, and there weren't any colorful fall leaves blowing around........
Whipping around, I saw that it was a stinky little skunk coming straight for us. I wasn't about to be a part of his target practice, so I took off like a bullet out of a gun yelling the whole time "RUN BEN!! IT'S A SKUNK, RUUUUUN!!" As I was shuffling in my flippy flops down the hill trying to keep up the overly large men's lounge pants I was sporting , I saw a gentleman picking up his morning newspaper at the end of his driveway. He gave he an odd look, but then shouted out a "good morning!" As I cruised by looking like a rockstar, I yelled back a hurried "good morniiiiiiiinggg!" Ben jogged by 10 seconds later giggling.
----
----
The ride back to Phoenix to catch our early evening flight was bittersweet. The Catalina foothills started to melt into the distance as the highway stretched before us. Everything was so pretty and basked in sunlight.
Ben was really pushing to do a 180 degree turn and head straight to Mexico with the convertible and whatever we had in our single carry-on bag. The idea of running away and living on a beach somewhere south of the border was and continues to be a tempting idea. I absolutely adore the feeling of freedom when you are on the road with no real plans-- just whatever tips your fancy at the time.
-----
We arrived back to MKE at midnight, and like every other time we get home from a trip, we were attacked all night by a couple of fluffy, purring black monsters. Then we woke up a couple hours later and each headed our separate ways to work.
---
xoxo, b
Ben and I left the MKE airport at the un-godly hour of 7am.... and dropped into Phoenix by 9am local time. We shuttled over to the rental car location, where I promptly parked my buns on a bench to guard our bags and engage in some people watching while Ben checked in. He got the keys, and we headed into the parking structure to load into our rental car. When we finally found our rental car section of the massive structure, the little Hispanic man who greeted us took a look at our claims ticket and simply muttered "white one right there." WELL, the white one right there happened to be a 2013 Mustang CONVERTIBLE!!!! Ben was smiling like a fool because he knew all along, and I think he enjoys surprising me because of my strange reactions. I really tried to keep my shit together, but there's a slight possibility that I lost bladder control and started squeaking in excitement.
------
So we loaded into the Mustang, which had FIVE MILES TOTAL on it, as well as plastic protectors still scattered throughout the car. The owner's manual itself was still in shrink wrap. The glorious new car smell lingered in the air... It was a bucket list check mark: Convertible road trip.
We stopped at the Casa Grande Ruins on our way south to meet up with my 'rents. It was interesting and made me want to build forts like I did when I was younger. We drove down to Oro Valley, which is right outside of Tucson, and met up with my parents at the condo they were renting. They were pretty excited to rock out in a convertible as well.
----
One day, we had a genius idea to put 5 people into a 4 person convertible and drive 2 hours to Tombstone, AZ. My mom, Brianna, and I squeezed into the backseat and regretted our decision 30 minutes into the trip. Whoever was sitting in the middle of the backseat ended up sitting on a hard hump, which caused butt cheek numbness. Silver lining: it was a couple hours in a car without wasting sunshine exposure.
When we stopped for lunch at a dusty little town along the way, my mom ended up getting herself stuck in the seat belt in the parking lot of a Quiznos. The jury is still out on exactly how she managed to get stuck with the belt unbuckled yet around her waist... wiggling up so she was standing in the backseat.... and climbing out of the car laughing/yelling at the rest of us that "this is not funny! THIS IS NOT FUNNY! I'M SERIOUS YOU GUYS!! HELP ME!!!!!"
Once we made it to Tombstone, we spent some time walking around. We found a silver mining tour, so we decided to hit up the saloon and then head back for some underground excitement. The Good Enough Mine tour was pretty cool, especially since we got to be decked out in hard hats. As we started to descend into the dark depths of the silver mine, Mama Steph became claustrophobic (I think she flashed back to her Quizno parking lot ordeal of before) and had to leave.
After the tour, and after finding my mom, both Brianna and I found silver rings as a souvenir of our AZ trip. Then we rode back in the convertible..... which is more fun when you have more room. I'm jus' saying.
----
Early in the morning on one of the days, Ben woke me up and asked if I wanted to go outside and watch the end of a meteor shower. It's widely known that I do not do mornings as well as other individuals, but Ben was so darn cute that I slid on my flippy flops and ventured outside with him. The desert sky was crisp and the stars were so bright... it was beautiful. We walked up a small hill on a dead end street and laid down on the pavement to watch for falling stars. We saw a couple before the sun started to ruin our view and we began to talk about going back inside. It was at this point that I heard what I originally thought to be a dried leaf blowing across the road. It was immediately following this thought that it occurred to me that we were in a desert, and there weren't any colorful fall leaves blowing around........
Whipping around, I saw that it was a stinky little skunk coming straight for us. I wasn't about to be a part of his target practice, so I took off like a bullet out of a gun yelling the whole time "RUN BEN!! IT'S A SKUNK, RUUUUUN!!" As I was shuffling in my flippy flops down the hill trying to keep up the overly large men's lounge pants I was sporting , I saw a gentleman picking up his morning newspaper at the end of his driveway. He gave he an odd look, but then shouted out a "good morning!" As I cruised by looking like a rockstar, I yelled back a hurried "good morniiiiiiiinggg!" Ben jogged by 10 seconds later giggling.
----
Our last day in AZ, we decided to do some hiking in the Catalina foothills. It was an awesome, tiresome, experience climbing up a pile of jagged rocks like a mountain goat.
Being overzealous, I pushed for a 3 mile hike to Romero Pools... which incidentally, included the 3 mile hike back out. I wanted to do this: Romero Pools. However, when we got to the pools, there wasn't enough water in the pools to do any sort of jumping, diving, or swimming. The whole hike was so pretty though, and I think it was worth the extra work!
 |
| at the Romero Pools with heat exhaustion |
----
Ben was really pushing to do a 180 degree turn and head straight to Mexico with the convertible and whatever we had in our single carry-on bag. The idea of running away and living on a beach somewhere south of the border was and continues to be a tempting idea. I absolutely adore the feeling of freedom when you are on the road with no real plans-- just whatever tips your fancy at the time.
-----
We arrived back to MKE at midnight, and like every other time we get home from a trip, we were attacked all night by a couple of fluffy, purring black monsters. Then we woke up a couple hours later and each headed our separate ways to work.
---
xoxo, b
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