music monday

new guilty pleasure song... come on, you can't help but dance in the car when this comes on.  i like this lyric video, but the music video is terrifying, hence why i didn't link to that.

in bigger music news, i changed the pre-sets in my car. to anyone who doesn't know me, you don't think this is a big deal.  the truth is, i set the pre-sets in my jeep when i first got it, a little over 7 years, and i haven't changed them since.  during that 7 years, i spent 4 of the years at college (about an hour and a half away where none of the stations work) and almost a year at my current home (same situation).  for some reason, keeping them always reminded me of driving around in my truck when i was 16, so this is a biiiiig step for me haha.  now i don't need to scan from 106.9 to 92.5 every time i want to find a song, hooray!

the malted barley

mike and i went to westerly for my friend jeff's graduation party and to hang out with my sister, shannon.

after the party, we ended up at an awesome new bar in westerly, the malted barley. they have over 35 beers on tap and awesome soft pretzels! however, i kinda felt like a jerk because mike gave up beer for lent... whoops!

me, jeff, and shannon

poor mike and his long island iced tea

cinnamon and sugar pretzel with cream cheese frosting for dipping

flashback friday take 2

3rd grade meg with fergie and stan

photo of the (yester)day

sometimes my roommates think i talk/sing/mumble/fidget/hum too much

and this is what happens

what a lunch break

so today i went to the adult version of chuck e cheese. and i'm not joking.  it's called stew leonard's, and wow did they have a lot of food there.  my coworkers and i went to check it out to possibly have a fundraising event there, and we walked around aimlessly for a good half an hour.  this is not your typical grocery store.

here are a few photos from my adventures.  after looking at these, you will understand the chuck e cheese reference.

right as you walked in, these cartons sang every 15 minutes... you can't tell me if doesn't remind you of this 

lol

that guy in the boar's head truck was mechanical and told customers how awesome the meat is

singing... cheese curd? 

epic.

a couple of videos

this is my baby, stanley. if you listen closely, you can hear his motorboat purr.  i was trying to make him give me kisses, but i couldn't seem to catch both of us in the frame.  i promise, he did it!

how adorable is this 3rd grader?! she said she had only played golf once with her cousin.  we need her in the program - future lpga!

fat tuesday and lent

happy fat tuesday! i will surely be eating well tonight. possibly some chicken enchiladas, rice, and definitely something good for dessert.

as for lent, i decided to give up fast food this year.  i definitely understand that lent isn't about only giving something up, it's about understanding why you are fasting and choosing to make different decisions.  i like to pick something within my reach to keep.  giving up fast food will definitely be an inconvenience for me, but i hope it will also make me a healthier person.  i would love to keep this going past lent, but i am looking forward to trying and hopefully succeeding.  

in the mean time, i will think about everything i won't have for the next 40 days: mcdonald's, dunkin, subway, wendy's, burger king, panda express (or any food court junk for that matter), dairy queen, kfc, popeye's, arby's, nathan's hot dogs, sonic, and taco bell. 

oh boy, this should be interesting.  if i missed anything, please add to my list!

music monday

i have heard this song in a chevy commercial for the first time during the super bowl and i loved it.  tonight i finally decided to find it online, and i had no idea janelle monae was featured in it!

i think she is great, i saw her in 2009 with no doubt and paramore.  all 3 of these awesome women sang stand and deliver at the concert. it was awesome!

here is the video for fun.'s "we are young." the video is a bit crazy, but i love this song!

seriously? this sucks.

this week sucked. there is no other way to say it. 

like i said last weekend, my 15 year old fergie passed away last saturday, so i have been thinking about and missing him.  on tuesday, mike and i had a great valentine's dinner, but shortly after i came down with the flu and missed a couple days of work. this was on top of the cold i've had for 2 weeks.  i still have a sore throat and a pretty froggy voice.  blah.

and yesterday, my mom called and said that another one of my cats, bernie-johnny, passed away.  he had been in a fight with something (he is an outdoor cat), and had a collapsed lung.  there was nothing they could do.  he was only 6 years old.

he and his 2 brothers, robbie and hideki, showed up on my parents' deck when i was a junior in high school.  every night, for a couple of months, 6 little eyes would look in the sliding glass door, and just stare at us and our 2 indoor cats (stan and fergie).  obviously we had to feed them, and they kept coming back.  they weren't really afraid of us, but they also didn't want to come inside.  the first one to come inside was robbie, and it was almost as if bernie and hideki sent him inside to see if the coast was clear, because as soon as robbie started visiting inside, so did bernie.  bernie was such a love bug.  he loved to cuddle, and would rub up against you as hard as he could until you pet him.  he was kind of a space cadet, too, and was really in his own world.  he was the most beautiful cat, too, he had brown, white, and some orange tiger markings.  

mike and bernie 

stan loved his little brother bernie

it was an absolute shock.  i couldn't take it any more.  mike and i drove down to rhode island, and we spent the day playing with stan, robbie, and hideki as well as looking at old pictures of all the cats as kittens.

i miss fergie and bernie so much. 

visiting hideki, robbie, and stan 

i love my stanley

flashback friday

I found a bunch of old photos and videos on my computer, so why not? Yes, I am going to embarrass myself on the internet at times, but hey, it's who I am!

my parents 3 kittens (all brothers) when they were less than a year old in 2006

How cute are they?!?

happy valentine's desserts!

this weekend i made some valentine's cupcakes for my coworkers, roommates, and friends. and yes, i cheated; i saw valentine's flavor funfetti at target and i had to have it! so instead, i spent lots of time making white chocolate accents and decorating.

and because one valentine's dessert isn't enough, i made strawberry shortcakes for mike and me last night.

i love how strawberries look like little hearts 

i cannot wait for dinner with mike tonight.  we are going to a great restaurant, dish, and we have a gift card - what's a better time to use it? the ownership at dish are also fabulous supporters of the first tee, so supporting them will be nice.

mike already gave me my present, needless to say it would be pretty hard to hide.  roxy and i love it!

happy valentine's day, everyone!

this past week and some sad news

another week of teaching our golf and life skill curriculum in waterbury.  this week i was a block away from this great italian bakery, avventura, and needless to say i was there almost every day.  the desserts, especially the chocolate canolis were fabulous.  

roxy loves watching tv with me

this is what happens when her water gets low. i guess you can have mine

sadly, yesterday, after work, my dad called and told me that my 15 year old cat, fergie passed away.  he had a heart attack at my parents' house and luckily didn't suffer.  i got him during the summer between 2nd and 2rd grade with his brother stanley.  after a cat i received for my first communion passed away, my mom decided she wanted to get me an orange tabby.  we called a bunch of different shelters and finally found a tabby.  when we went to go get him (i already knew i wanted to name him stanley), ferguson was in the cage with him.  ferg jumped right into my dad's arms, and we knew we couldn't just take stanley.  

fergie was the weirdest cat ever.  he loved milk his whole life, and when he wanted it, he would just wait next to the fridge.  i would pull a bottle of juice out, ask him if he wanted some, and he would just sit there.  i would keep doing that with pickles, olives, or other jars or bottles and he would just sit there.  when i finally would take the milk out and ask if he wanted that, he would meow over and over. he also licked people. i never understood it, but he would sit on my lap and keep licking my face.  he looked like a cow and had a little goatee.  he really was a sweet cat.

begging for milk

fergie and stanley... they're not too good at paying attention

samoas from scratch

last weekend mike's goddaughter asked him to buy girl scout cookies, and it got me thinking about how much i love samoas! so, for the super bowl, i decided to try them from scratch.  if i do say so myself, they turned out great!  i brought some to my family and coworkers and they loved them too.  it took a bit of work, but they are definitely adaptable to take less time (i.e. not cutting holes in the middle of each cookie or individually dipping/ drizzling each cookie in chocolate), so if you have a couple of hours to spare some weekend, i would try these cookies!

ingredients:

for the cookies:

- 2 sticks of butter at room temperature

- 1/2 cup sugar

- 2 cups flour

- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

- 2 tablespoons milk

for the topping:

- 3 cups sweetened coconut

- 15 ounces soft caramels (i bought the ones individually wrapped... whoops! haha)

- 1/4 teaspoon salt

- 3 tablespoons milk

- 8 ounces of semi sweet chocolate

directions:

for the cookies:

- using a mixer, cream the butter and sugar

- in a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt

- slowly add this dry mix to the butter mixture

- slowly add the vanilla and milk 

- cover dough and refrigerate until dough is as firm as a stick of butter

- roll out the dough, on a well-floured surface, to desired thickness (i made it thin for this recipe)

- cut your shapes out of the dough

- place the shapes on a greased cookie sheet

-bake for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees

for the topping:

- toast the caramel in the oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes **making sure to take it out every minute and a half or 2 minutes to stir so it does not burn

- microwave caramels, salt, and milk for topping in 1 minute increments until melted

- stir the toasted and cooled coconut into the caramel mixture

- **after the cookies have cooled spread the coconut/caramel mixture onto cookies (the only thing i found to work was spreading the mixture by hand and dipping my hands in water in between every cookie so it wouldn't stick to me)

- once the caramel/ coconut is cooled on the cookies, dip the bottom of the cookies into melted semi-sweet chocolate (i used a fork to evenly spread the chocolate and remove the excess)

- pipe melted chocolate on top of the cookies for decoration

before

after

mike bent a bbq skewer for me to use for the inner circle 

messy - but it worked well! 

it does make a lot! 

easy party dip

my mom has made this dip ever since i can remember. when i was little, i used to just eat the mozzarella cheese off the top haha, but now i enjoy every bit of it. my friend liz and i can eat the whole thing in 15 minutes flat.

ingredients:

- 1 1/4 cup mozzarella cheese

- 1 can (15 ounces) bean-less chili 

- 1 bar (8 ounces) cream cheese 

directions:

- unwrap the cream cheese and microwave it for 1 minute in a 9 or 10 in microwave safe pie plate

- using the back of a spoon, spread the cream cheese evenly across the bottom of the pan

- over the cream cheese with the can of chili (i usually use about 3/4 of the can)

- spread the mozzarella on top of the chili

- microwave for about 4 minutes or until edges are bubbly and mozzarella is melted

the best part of this dip is that you can make it hours ahead of time, and then just throw it in the microwave when you want it.  we made waaaaay too much food on super bowl sunday so we ate it the next day and it was just as good.

the adventures of roxy: part 2

as i have said in the past, roxy loooooves the roof. she is a total indoor cat, so much so if i put her anywhere in our front lawn, she will sprint as fast as possible to the garage or breezeway door and wait patiently outside until i let her inside.

but the roof is another story. everyday when i get home from work, she runs up the stairs, into my room, and proceeds to bang her head against the window until i open it and let her out.

here she was yesterday... in 35 degree new england weather.

funniest part: being an indoor cat she doesn't understand the wind. yesterday was especially windy and she looked totally cross-eyed trying to figure out what was going on... but she still didn't want to come inside.

aaaaand after a year of having a fish tank, she has discovered the fish. took you long enough, rox! now let's see how this goes. 

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cheddar bay biscuits at home

last weekend i saw a red lobster commercial and had an immediate craving for cheddar bay biscuits. since mike is still off his feet and we don't have one close by, i searched for recipes and combined a few to make them semi-homemade!  here you go!

ingredients:

- 2 cups of bisquick mix

- 1 cup shredded mild cheddar (half mild/half sharp if desirable - preferably yellow cheese to add some color)

- 2/3 cups milk

- 3/4 tablespoon garlic powder

- 2 tablespoons butter (melted)

- 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley

- 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt 

directions:

- preheat the oven to 400 degrees

- in a large bowl combine bisquick, cheese, and garlic powder and mix by hand.

- stir in milk until blended.

- drop batter in tablespoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet.

- bake for 10 minutes.

-while baking, combine the melted butter, parsley, and garlic salt.

- take biscuits out of the oven and brush with the butter mixture.

- bake brushed biscuits for another 5-6 minutes.

see - not too difficult, and so delicious!