Spooktacular findings

Kids may have candy-filled Halloweens to look forward to, but from now on I plan on getting mentally prepared for the ghoulish day by having seasonally appropriate martinis. Pumpkin Spice Martinis, to be exact. Yum. Take one look at this bad boy and just TRY to deny the urge to run out and make one of your own. I dare you.

Eric whipped one of these bad boys up for me the other night and let me just say – yowza!! This is one of those dangerous types of drinks, though. They taste oh so delicious and go down way too easily. Too many of these puppies and I’ll probably be a bit too jovial and hand out full bags of candy to trick-or-treaters.

If you, too, were drooling like I was when I first saw a picture of this piece of art, here’s the recipe:

 

PS – I suppose Ray’s is back on my good side now. The Pumpkin Spirit that makes this drink so delicious is sold by very few distributors. Of course, Ray’s is one of them. Yet another reason for Eric to love them even more. Damn you, Ray’s. Damn you.  You’ve won again.

~as

Modern day MacGyver, I am

As a child, I was fascinated with MacGyver. Who am I kidding? I’m STILL fascinated.

My grandma watched the show incessantly and as such, whenever I visited her over my summer breaks I would always get sucked in as well. After all, the man epitomized genius. He could take a shoe string, bubblegum, and a paper clip and rig up the most amazing contraption to get him out of any scenario imaginable. Brilliant!

Nothing ever stopped that crazy cat.

Today, I would have made MacGyver proud.

For the last few weeks I’ve really been digging hot tea at work. I'm still loyal to my faithful coffee in the mornings, but I’m flirting with tea to break up the boring afternoon bottled water monotony. Bueller…Bueller…

Anyway, select brands of tea don’t have strings attached to the bags to easily dip them into the hot water. (Side note: what weenie made that decision??) Usually, that means I burn my fingers reaching into the cup of hot water after I’ve let it float around in the water for a bit. Other times I’ll use a plastic spoon to retrieve it, but who wants to waste a perfectly good spoon just to retrieve a tea bag?

So what’s a girl to do? Make like MacGyver and use what’s readily available at my desk!

 

As you’ll notice, I’ve used a standard office clip that I’ve clamped to my tea bag. Along with an assist from my trusty ballpoint pen…BAM! I’m good to go.

No big deal. Please call me MacGyver, Jr. from here on out.

Now if only I could use my covert ops/MacGyver skills to devise a way to NOT spill nail polish and hand lotion all over the inside of my purse…in the same weekend. Doh! Not only was it a nice purse, but it was also OPI nail polish! OPI is like the crack of nail polish. It’s expensive and ridiculously addictive.

~as

What the what?!?

We’re headed this weekend to go visit my Mom’s side of the family in Michigan….waaaaay up north to the good ol’ U.P. (That’s the Upper Peninsula, for those of you not up on your geography lingo.) Or as we like to affectionately call it, “The Yoop”.

So what are the chances they are under a Winter Weather Advisory tonight? Very good, apparently. 6 inches of rainy, heavy SNOW. What the what?!? Snow? On October 23rd? And 6 inches of it? Sigh.

And riddle me this, Batman: How can they have a WINTER Weather Advisory when winter is still TWO MONTHS away?!?

“On the road again…I just can’t wait to get on the road again...”

I bet Willie Nelson wasn’t heading to the U.P. in October when he wrote those lyrics. Just sayin…

Stayed tuned for tales of our wintry weather travels next week. I’ll likely be incommunicado while in The Yoop. They’re still waiting to get the Internet up there.

Just joshing! Love you, Yoop! ;)


~as

I blame Ray's

“Hi, my name is Anne, and I’m married to a gin martini pusher.”

There. I said it.

Now the healing can begin.

To give a little background, Eric regularly gets emails from Ray’s Liquors for various promotions. The latest and greatest had to do with Rehorst gin and vodka. While I may fall victim to clothing/shoes promos, Eric falls hard for Ray’s promos.

The added appeal of the Rehorst deal included two tickets to a Rehorst distillery tour and tasting. For those with a liver of steel or those that appreciate the taste of liquor on its own, this is probably of great interest.

Me…not so much.

While the jury’s still out on whether or not my liver is made of steel, I definitely do not have a taste for hard liquors minus a mixer. When Eric brought up the idea of the tour/tasting, all I could think about is where I would be able to ditch the “tastes” I would receive. Nearest plant?

Anyway, I’m not sure if he’s gearing up for the tour or what, but Eric’s been lovin’ him some gin martinis lately. And I’m not talking the type I could be down with. You know…Cosmos, Appletinis, Chocolate flavored, etc.

We’re talking the real kind - straight gin mixed only with Vermouth…the concoction guaranteed to grow hair on your chest.

And he’s convinced himself that he’s going to get me to like them as much as he does. Accordingly, each time he mixes one up, he asks me to try it. And being the agreeable wife I am, I do. Unfortunately for him, this is ALWAYS what happens:

I’m a kid with a lemon for the first time. It’s awful. Just awful.

And then about two minutes later, he’ll try to convince me to try it again! Ummm, if ANYTHING about my previous reaction indicated I would enjoy another taste, please let me know so I stop it immediately.

With that said, the other day Eric came home from hanging out with some friends. With great apprehension and caution he asked, “How would you feel about me maybe bringing one of my friends instead on the Rehorst tour and tasting?”

How do I feel??? OVERJOYED! There is a God.

~as

Cracks kill

I swear, I could write a book on the overwhelming amount of embarrassing moments I go through on a weekly basis.

The latest occurred as I was sauntering down the streets of downtown Milwaukee as I made my way into work the other morning. Actually, let’s be honest – it’s late October in Wisconsin. No one saunters anymore. It’s a rapid walk to/from anywhere in hopes your digits don’t turn into purple icicles in 2.2 seconds.

To give a little background on this incident (and Eric will most definitely agree), I usually make terrible decisions when it comes to sensible footwear in the fall/winter months. I’m the girl that wears open-toe shoes throughout October until I can’t stand the numbing and purple tint my tootsies get. I’m also the girl that you see roaming around in 15 inches of snow with four inch heels on. Like I said, awful decisions. And I know I should be more sensible, but I’m not, which probably entitles me to a few of the ridiculous events that transpire.

Anyway, I was rounding the corner at a major intersection and was about to open the office building door. All was looking hunky dory. Suddenly, before I know it, I’m walking…left foot, right foot, left foot…and I go to step with my right heeled foot and my heel cements itself into a HUGE crack in the pavement! And my momentum was going with such force that I continued to take another two steps forward…WITHOUT MY RIGHT SHOE before I could stop. Eeks!

And because I also put off wearing socks for as long as I can, poor “righty” landed smack dab on the cold, dirty pavement…all NAKED!  Here's the closest visual I could find.  This chick looks like she's on some sort of grate, which I was not, but you get the idea:

Oh, and not only was I now sans one shoe in the middle of downtown, the heel on my pump got so wedged into the f’ing crack that I had to use both hands to pull the sucker out! For a brief millisecond, I panicked thinking about what my plan would be if I couldn’t get the shoe out of the crack.

Possibly run home and hide under the covers in my bed?

Luckily, it came out of the crack a second later…minus the leather the stupid asphalt tore off the heel. Guess I didn’t really want that leather piece anyway. Looks like the black Sharpie will need to fix this boo-boo…

To make matters worse, this all went down right in front of glass doors which are next to a bank of elevators that typically hold court to 10-15 people at any given time around the 8 o’clock hour. Well, I must’ve been REALLY good the previous day (or maybe scaled back on my road rage that morning) to be granted a “freebie”. Only one older woman was there. Phew. And she was nice about it, too…even going so far as to say it’s happened to her before. Who knows if it really happened to her, but at least my blushed cheeks started to fade. I’m sure they’ll make another appearance all too soon, though.

~as

Dolla dolla bills, y'all

Some of you may have noticed that I recently added advertising to my blog. I decided to do this mainly out of sheer curiosity. Initially, I was curious about the type of ads that would be placed on my site. I was REALLY hoping I would not need to implement the “18 and over” banner on my site due to the ad content, if you catch my drift. Thankfully, I did not. Phew.

I think I may have figured out that the text in my new posts are scanned for various key words and then the advertisements are based off of those words and/or pics. Then again, I’m still very new to blogging so I might be making all of that up. One never knows. And I suppose I could try to research that a bit more, but I’m bored just thinking about that.

Oops, I’m on a tangent again. Back to the reasons I added advertising…

My interest was also piqued when I found out I could actually make money from posting the ads. Say what?!?! Money? Color me there.

The first week or so, I wasn’t seeing much in terms of cash flow. And I’m still not. But I’m starting to see a little! So far I’ve racked up $3.70! Woohoo! Okay, it’s nothing to be excited about yet, but maybe one day. Only YOU can help me make this site profitable (or at least not an utter waste of time)!

Moral of the story: If you see an ad you’re interested in, I definitely wouldn’t be opposed to you checking it out. 

Official Google Disclaimer: Clicks on Google ads must result from genuine user interest. Any method that artificially generates clicks or impressions on your Google ads is strictly prohibited.

Now I'm off the hook.  ;)

Maybe the time I put into coming up with content and transforming all the nonsensical thoughts in my head into a coherent post could actually buy me a pair of shoes in the long run. And I mean LONG run. Unless, of course, you know where I can get a sweet pair of kicks for $3.70…

Speaking of sweet, on a totally different subject, I was told not long ago that I have “sweet carrying skills”. It was attributed to the fact that I can carry multiple beverage glasses, plates, etc. at the same time with my bare hands. BARE HANDS FOLKS. No silly trays needed here. Pffft. I was a waitress throughout high school and college and apparently those mad skills I acquired are really coming in handy each night as Eric and I make our trek from the kitchen to our upstairs family room with dinner.

I think these sweet carrying skills will pair nicely with my sweet computer hacking skills and nun chuck skills.

~as

Run, Forrest, Run!

This past weekend Eric accomplished a HUGE goal. He ran in the 2009 Chicago Marathon! GO ERIC!!!

After about six months of training, the weekend had finally arrived. Although the race itself wasn’t until Sunday, we headed down to the Windy City on Saturday.

To prep for the big day, we carb-loaded at an Italian restaurant in the West Loop Saturday night. We, of course, didn’t know we needed reservations so we ended up having to sit at the bar and have the bartender serve us. No big deal. We were both fine with that…until Chatty Cathy to my right wouldn’t shut up. It was this older man (late 50’s/early 60’s) that seemed like a creeper at first. Turns out he was the owner of the restaurant and is originally from Waukesha, WI. Sounds fine, right?

No.

He KEPT talking and would not stop. I ended up humoring him for about 15-20 minutes while we ate our dinner entrées. Ugh. I somehow got this idea in my head that maybe if I let him ramble on he would comp our meals. Negative. I was kind of irritated. I mean, really. Being the owner of a restaurant you have to be aware that people want to enjoy their meals with one another – not a complete stranger! In the words of Full House’s Stephanie Tanner, “How rude!” The food, however, was really good so it all worked out in the end. 

Anyway, the next morning after gearing up in multiple layers for the frigid Chicago temps (30 degrees at 6:30am), I dropped Eric off at the start area and went to find parking for myself. Not easy in downtown Chicago on a good day, let alone on Marathon Day.

Somehow by the grace of God, though, I managed to find a street spot – right next to a Starbucks nonetheless! With my Pumpkin Spice Latte in hand, I was able to witness Eric running his heart out at the 3.5 mile mark. Unfortunately, he didn’t see me because there were just too many people still clustered together...

I was on the move again. Next, I caught him on the 12.5 mile mark. After perching on my tippy-toes for what felt like hours of searching and scanning the pack of runners, I must’ve looked down for a brief second when all of a sudden I hear, “Anne!”

HA! In a setting where typically the spectators are yelling out the runner’s names, what are the chances that Eric is yelling mine? As it turns out, very good. He spotted me first. C’mon, Anne - look alive!

After laughing my butt off for a while because Eric spotted me first, I composed myself and booked it back to my car so I could drive to the 20.5 mile mark. Again, miraculously I found street parking about a half mile away from the course. I was definitely pressed for time, so I had to run from my car to the course sidelines in order to catch him. For a second, I felt like I was in the race! Okay, not really, but you catch my drift.

Alas, I saw Eric and was shouting his name like a woman gone mad. Just when I started to think he wasn’t going to see/hear me, he turned his head and found me and we waved and smiled at each other. YAY! I had a feeling at this point in the race he’d need all the support/motivation he could get, so I was SO glad he saw me cheering him on. Less than 6 miles to go at this point!

FYI - I would post pics that I took myself throughout the day, but they are so terrible I just can’t. They’re pretty comical actually. In most of the shots I only got half of his head. No body. Just half of his head. In my defense, though, it’s super hard to keep a watchful eye out for him, cheer like crazy when I do see him (and hopefully make eye contact with him), and still take the shot as he’s zooming by. Tricky stuff!

Lesson I learned that afternoon? ALWAYS make sure to arrange a meeting spot for AFTER the race. Oops. With hundreds of thousands of people clustered around the finish line and surrounding area, I almost started to panic when I realized in the blur of the morning we didn’t arrange anything. Thankfully, he borrowed someone’s cell phone and called me. Phew. “Reunited and it feels so good….”


~as

Kids crack me up

Every Halloween, I usually try to stock up on all the good stuff that trick-or-treaters hope to score - or at least the ones I hoped for – Reese’s peanut butter cups, Snickers, and Kit Kats. The bad thing is that I sample WAY too much as I wait for the kiddies to arrive. If I were smart, I’d get the kinds of candy I don’t like so I wouldn’t be as tempted to eat it, but it’s all about the kids, right?! I must get the good stuff, even if my waistline takes a hit. Trick-or-treating rules.

With that said, I asked my girlfriend Lynda what her kids (a 1 year old and 3 year old) are dressing up as this year.

The answer regarding her daughter (the 3 year old) was classic and literally made me laugh out loud because it was so stinkin’ adorable!

Lynda: “Mia is going as Allison Wonderland. I keep telling her it's "Alice in" but she corrects me. She knows everything right now. lol.”

Anne: (laughing her butt off for two reasons...)

First, I thought my dear friend Lynda - an adult, wife, and mother of two children - didn’t know it was "Alice in" Wonderland! I was thinking, “Umm...Lynda…" but then I kept reading.  Phew.

Second, I’m laughing because it’s just so freakin’ adorable. Kids definitely say/do/think the darndest things and I absolutely love it.

As a side note: why is THIS the first image that comes up on Google Images for Alice in Wonderland?!?!

Why do ALL costumes turn slutty these days? Seriously! I bet Slutty "Allison" will be giving out tricks instead of treats, if ya feel me. Wrong. Just wrong.

~as

I heart Pretty Woman

As (un)luck would have it, I did not in fact win the poker tournament. Big shocker, I know. Nor did my secret charm. BOO! The two surprises of the tournament for me?

First, I managed to stay in the tournament longer than Eric. <Insert record scratch>

Weird, right?! Not good for us. That meant the odds of us “cashing” drastically dropped at that point. (I think I used the term “cashing” appropriately, but God only knows…see this post for more details.) Here’s a little something to depict the predicament we were in:

With Eric out of the tournament things were looking bleak.

Second surprise? I was the last chick to survive in the tournament! Sweetness. So long story short, had I been playing the tournament with just the chicks, I would’ve totally dominated! Stupid boys. And we’ll ignore the fact that there were only a total of three girls playing. Minor details.

And just when I thought I didn’t quite lose enough money for the night, I proceeded to jovially join the cash game. “Big mistake. HUGE mistake.” (Vivian Ward, Pretty Woman) The cash game went south rather quickly, but for some unknown reason I kept shoving more money into the game. What the…?

Alas, there was good news of the night. We did NOT have repeat incidents of our last poker tournament. Incidents such as…well, to protect the privacy of the innocent, let’s just say there was a LOT of falling. And apparently too many drinks. But I’m proud to report this time the blinds were left unharmed and there were no bruises. Except maybe a few bruised egos for those of use that didn’t win the tournament.

In other news, we hit up the Sprecher Brewery Tour on Saturday. While I’ve frequented the Lakefront Brewery Tour, oh about 1,398 times, I was a Sprecher virgin. It was a quick tour (about 20-30 minutes) and our guide - who we know! - kept us moving along throughout the facility. Thank goodness for that because my A.D.D. tendencies can’t handle much more than that; especially since I’m pretty sure I could recite the brewing process in my sleep at this point.

After the tour, we sampled...rootbeer, of course! And if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge I want to sell you…

~as