Friday, March 31, 2006

Tastes like your Momma's

Who knew faux fried chicken could be so damn good?!? That's what the secret chicken dish was for dinner tonight and it got thumbs up.

My mashed potatoes, however, got thumbs down. I think they only got thumbs down because I wouldn't let jparks put curry powder or lemon pepper in them and so no matter how they came out he was going to be disappointed. I thought they were pretty good for never making mashed potatoes before and making up the recipe as I went.

I would once again like to say, damn I've got mad cooking skillz.

Wanna come over for dinner?

I'm just so proud of my new cooking skillz (that skills with a z folks because I'm that damn good) I'm going to brag about them on here.

I never used to think I could cook anything more than a 2-step box of mac and cheese, but lately I've been a cooking fool. I made white turkey chili for dinner the other night and last night I made gingersnap pot roast. yuuuum gingersnap pot roast. So easy and very good, I highly recommend it.

Tonight I'm making chicken. I can't reveal the kind of chicken yet because Jason will read it and it won't be a surprise. (Really I don't like him to know what the meal is supposed to be in case I screw it up. If he's not sure what the original meal destination was then I can lie and tell him "yup, it was supposed to be blacken chicken with crunchy mashed potatoes.") I'll let ya'll know how it turns out.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Collecting data

I've mentioned before that Jason and I are both monitoring how much traffic our blogs get, (go formationofme.com go!) and we've both noticed that the most surefire way to have your traffic spike is not to mention breasts, but have Dan Sandler mention you on his blog. Holy cow those Rice University Computer Science folks sure know how to follow links through.

Thanks Dan!

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Drunk Driving 101

I've been making plans to hang out with some of my friends from B&N one last time before we leave for California and one guy, Craig, suggested we (me, Jason, him, and his girlfriend Jamie) go bowling and drinking. While trying to figure out a good time to go, Craig suggested the afternoon because "if you swerve in the afternoon the cops don't think you're drunk driving; they think you're just a bad driver."

As horrible as it is, you can't argue with his logic.

Living with Jason is tiring.

jparks: "You know I was right."

me: "I never said you were wrong. But you presented in a 'I'm a fuckwad so hate me' kinda way, so I did"

jparks: "If I present it in a I'm a sexy bitch kind of way..."

me: "No"

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

The Feminine Mystique

Today the moving lady came to assess our possessions to determine how big of a truck we'll need to move to California. While here she told us that we are not supposed to pack our stuff like Jason had me believing and that we should leave that up to her team of professionals. Sweet. Except that I quit B&N before our vacation so when we got back I could spend my time packing. So today was my first official day as a house woman.

Kill me now. Please.

Really I have great respect for women that stay home and cook, clean, and keep their homes running smoothly, but our tiny apartment does not require much upkeep, I can vacuum the whole thing in 10 minutes. And having things running smoothly means having Jason occupied in another room so I can squeeze in one more episode of Alias undisturbed. All that was left to entertain me was cooking. So I made a huge ass pot of white chili, some veggies, and about a million Guinness chocolate cupcakes. And that entertained me for about 2 hours, after that boredom set in. Next up, shaving mohawks onto the cats.

What really worries me is that I don't have a job lined up for California and I really am worried about finding one. I see many, many days of staying at home to do domestics things ahead of me. And the worst part is that I won't even having the cooking to do since Jason will be working in an actual office and Google feeds their employees 3 meals a day.

I fear for my sanity.

Moving

I was waiting for Jason to turn in his notice with PalmSource before I mentioned this on my blog and since he did that yesterday I can now say that we are moving to California. I know for most people this is old news but I'm sure there are a few people I haven't told yet.

Jason took a job with Google and we have to go out to the Bay Area for it. Hopefully we won't have to stay very long and will be able to transfer to one of Google's many other offices around the country within a year.

For those of you that know we are moving, this might be different than what I orginally told you: We leave for California on April 9th. Or around April 9th. Basically sooner than I probably mentioned.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Purple People Eater, almost

While in Paris and London I kept seeing people with really great hair colors. Not your normal colors that naturally grow out of people's heads either, but bright fun colors that made me think of having no worries and actually enjoying life. Of course I had to have fun hair too.

When we got home I made a hair appointment to have my hair highlighted in purple. Why purple? I haven't a clue. I think I picked it because I thought it would be nice and dark and still look good against my red hair. I also wasn't thinking lavender or anything light but rather a dark violet, almost black, color.

Before you jump ahead and think I now have purple hair, stop. It's not purple. My stylist wasn't sure what shade of purple I was thinking and therefore she didn't go buy any dyes. She offered to go over the weekend and get some and we could reschedule for during the week, but being the instant gratification person I am, I told her I was open to other color options and let's work with what she had in the salon.

Her solution was not highlights but rather a total dye job changing every little bit of hair that I have. We started by making my hair brown. A really deep chocolate brown that acts as a nice platform for the other three colors I have striped through it. She then layered an orangey red, a deep red-ish violet, and a bright red through it.

If I do say so myself, it looks AWESOME. Like, I rock and have super cool hair, awesome.

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Friday, March 24, 2006

Perfect Brown Boots

While in London I bought the best, most amazing, perfect, wonderful, great, lovely pair of brown boots in existence.


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Apparently the fact that I was only looking in one country was why I never found them. Yay for London! Yay for finding boots!

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

The Secret Life of Crap

In case anyone pays attention to the books I read, that last one, The Secret Life of Bees, was crap. I don't recommend it.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Quiet Riot

We're back in Paris and as far as we can tell the riots have stopped. Which is a good thing since I didn't feel like having to bail Jason out of jail.

Monday, March 20, 2006

The Chronic-What?!?-cles of Narnia

Did you think my dorkyness just extended to things related to Harry Potter? Boy, were you wrong.

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These were taken at Hamley's Toy store in London. They had their stairs step up like various scenes from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and I just had to take pictures in the White Witch's Throne and the Kings Throne. If only I had a crown and scepter then the look would have been complete.

She's got a ticket to ride

Today we went to the British Library. The tour there is very small, only one floor, but packed with some really cool things.

You can go and view some of the oldest Bibles in existence, original manuscripts from Mozart, the original copy of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and tons of other things.

My personal favorite part of the Library was the Beatles shrine. They have the original manuscripts of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and "Yesterday" (as well as a few others) and you can listen to the songs while you look at the manuscripts. Something about the whole experience put a goofy smile on my face.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

you excite me no end

Recently Jason showed me that I can get a monthly report of information about my blog. Mostly it's boring computer stuff that I don't understand but there was one section of information that was pretty interesting: the search query report.

The search query report is a listing of things people have searched for that lead them to my blog. Not only does my blog have to come up as a search result, but the person has to actually click on my website from the search engine. The following is a list of things that people searched for and found me:













































#reqssearch term
2what does it mean when you have no fortune in your fortune cookie
1bra salesgirl
1tornado formation lessons?
1new orleans male workout partner
1what does no fortune in a fortune cookie mean
1push up bra change room
1bradz knitting clothes
12006 icing bags
1flickr lingerie
1buttercream icing martha stewart
1out of the comfort zone
1singulair midol
1my new bff
1are women physically weaker
1february 2006 martha stewart cookie of month
1globewarming
1victoria secret ipex bras opinion
1comment about confucius
1regan
1you excite me no end
1opinion ipex bra
1how can i get a bigger butt
1of me at
1ipex bra opinions
1austin allergy december 2005
1what does it mean if there is no fortune in your cookie
1allergy archives in austin
1tommy lee's dormroom
1formationofme.com
1how to wear red lipstick
1my cat is smarter than your honor student
1angelina jolie jet plane personal
1nano insturctions
1ipex push up
1unbuttoned breasts
1cupcakes cartoon pictures
1only float you throw beads at
1wearing my new bra
1she proudly unbuttoned bra
1ipex victoria secret replica
1weightwatchers point value for king cake
1what regan means

Let me just say that I knew talking about my breasts would draw the readers in. And I also like that someone wanted to know how to get a bigger butt and they found me. Move over JLo, my ass is taking over!

As dorky as could be

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Thursday, March 16, 2006

Greetings from London

Am. Loving. London.

And it's not just because of Harrod's Chocolate Bar (where you can get a cup of hot chocolate that's so good you will never need to have sex again)

We haven't been in as big of a tourist frenzy as we were in Paris and maybe that's why I'm liking London more. We aren't killing ourselves trying to do a million things a day here and I'm okay with that. If I don't see everything on my list, well there's always next time.

I haven't added any pictures yet since our hotel doesn't have internet and we have to pay by the hour at an internet cafe around the corner, but as I'll let everyone know when I do get some added.

Mom, tell Lily hello for me. I miss her much. I had a pillow by my side last night and I thought it was her. When I woke up enough to realize it wasn't her I was very upset.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Going to the Loo

In case anyone is wondering, London is the same as Paris. Meaning that we still have to return to the hotel room for Jason to poop every afternoon.

How have I never noticed this in the States?

Monday, March 13, 2006

No Bread Left Behind!

My slogan for the Paris portion of our trip has been "No bread left behind" This means, all bread at all meals must be consumed. My theory is that they put something extra special in bread here that makes it's impossible for me to control myself.

This slogan has thrown Jason into a South Beach preaching frenzy, whining about carbs being bad everytime I reach for another piece.

I'm sorry Jason, but I will leave no bread behind. It is not my way.

Mystery Solved

I figured out why I'm so tired. It's not the cold. It's not the walking. It's not even the incredibly uncomfortable bed in the hotel room.

It's the fact that Jason wakes me up at 5am. 5AM FOR NO GOOD REASON! He can't sleep anymore so he pulls out the laptop and starts working on blog posts, or emails, or a game of chess that states EVERY MOVE IT MAKES WAKING UP THE PERSON TRYING TO SLEEP TO A REASONABLE HOUR RIGHT NEXT TO YOU.

I think I'm going to start hiding the laptop once he falls asleep at night.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Parlez-vous anglais?

Sorry I’ve been missing in action, but I’ve had very little time to sit and write anything to post here.

Well, I’ve had very little time and I’ve also been exhausted. Jason can blame his exhaustion on his need to poop, but I don’t think I can blame mine on that. I don’t know if it’s the cold sucking the energy out of me or if it’s all of the walking we’ve been doing but by the end of the day I’m ready for bed. Actually I’m ready for a bath with the most wonderful product from Sephora that you can’t get in the States and then bed. (BTW that product is a fizzing sugar cube that comes in a bunch of scents and only costs 1€, which equals about $1.20. It’s heaven sent down to me in a little rectangular shape. Why can’t US Sephora sell them? Because God is punishing me for not being European.)

Here are the things we’ve done so far:


I’m sure I’m forgetting some things, which is why I should have been making posts all along. And please note that the Eiffel Tower is not on this list. While we've seen the Eiffel from a distance we haven't actually been to it yet. I simply love the idea that you can come to Paris and not see the Eiffel Tower the first day. I'm not sure why the amuses me so much but it does.

So far I’ve learned many things while here:

  • French department stores have everything you could ever want under one roof. Seriously, what do you need? A shirt? Got it! A washing machine? Got it! A chandelier? Got it! A spool of thread? Got it! A greeting card? Got it!
  • The French drive the smallest cars I have ever seen. The biggest thing we’ve seen has been a RAV4. Everything else is about the size of a closed in riding lawnmower.
  • On Sundays all the crazies come out to ride the Metro. They bring karaoke machines on the cars and sing and dance. They make up their own music on the platforms and put on shows. It’s free entertainment!
  • If you don’t speak French you are going to have to pay for water in a café. Not only will you pay for it but you’ll end up paying 5€ for it. I’m convinced this is just the price you must pay as an American.
  • If you stop at a café and the place is filled with tourists, move on. Otherwise you will pay 8€ for a glass of Coca-Cola Light. (Yeah, that’s about $9.40 for a Diet Coke)
  • Jason WILL NOT allow his picture to taken in any kind of touristy way. Most pictures I’ve taken of him have been on the sly.
  • I’m not hip enough to understand a lot of modern art.
  • If you dress right you’ll be confused for an Irish or English girl and not an American one. Better service is received this way.
  • French children are more stylish than American ones. Hell, French children are more stylish than me.


I have posted some pictures from the trip here: Paris Pictures. The thing about them is this, our camera is not that great. It's good for quick pictures and things along those lines, but for zooming and taking really good detailed images it's not ideal. So please don't expect Dooce caliber pictures from my tiny Canon Elph. Also, I'm adding pictures pretty frequently so check back often.

I can't believe we've been here for less than a week. I can't believe we still have a week in London left. And then more time back in Paris. Do I ever have to come home? Can I just have my animals shipped to me?

Thursday, March 9, 2006

Naptime

Every afternoon since we've been here we've had to return to our hotel room for Jason to take a nap. His explaination for this:

"I'm sorry I have to take a nap, pooin' makes me tired."

Tuesday, March 7, 2006

International Puking Champ!

It’s 3:36 am in Paris and we can’t sleep. Thank you very much jet lag.

The airplane food on the flight here was great. I enjoyed it even more the second time I saw it when I threw up during landing. What’s really sad is that this was above and beyond the best landing I’ve ever experienced, we were on the ground and I didn’t even realize we’d complete our descent. My fellow passengers were none too happy with me since I couldn’t go to the bathroom to enjoy my purging in peace. Nope, it was an airsick bag out in front of everyone. And truly the best part was you don’t just board the plane and then run through customs here at Charles de Gaulle airport. Nope, here you puke in front of everyone and then have to board a bus with them and ride through the airport. Sweeeeet.

The rest of the day was kind of a wash after we got out of the airport. After navigating the metro (is it a metro here? Or is it a tube?) with 3 huge suitcases, 2 backpacks, and a purse, we made it to the hotel by 12:30 (as in noon:30) Our finding the hotel was thanks to a very kind older French woman that saw us standing on a street corner with a map and a very confused looks on our faces and took pity on us. She pointed us in the right direction and as it turns out we were standing less than a block from our hotels. Stupid Americans.

Once we checked into our room (which is small, very small, but bigger than I was expecting) I managed to get sick again. So the rest of our first day in Paris was spent with me becoming intimate with our Parisian toilet and Jason venturing out in the rain to try and find food for himself.

I haven’t seen much of the city yet, but the area around our hotel is beautiful and even more amazing then I thought it would be. I think in a couple of hours we’ll be getting up to grab some breakfast and start our first official day of touring. Our plans for today include touring the Louvre and going on one of the walks included in our Paris travel book.

Monday, March 6, 2006

Did I mention...

...that I'm nervous?

I'm not a good airplane passenger as the whole idea of flying doesn't sit well wth me, and this will be the biggest plane I've ever been on and this will also be the longest flight I've ever been on. Those also happens to be two things that aren' sitting so well with me. Planes that big AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE IN THE SKY. And I'm not supposed to be in the sky either.

I should sneak a bottle of whiskey onto the plane with me.

Heading out again

I'll be out of town for quite awhile so if you need to reach me email will be best since I won't have my cell phone at all.

Stay tuned for pictures to be posted from Paris and London.

Wednesday, March 1, 2006

Touchdown

I threw a football and now I hurt. I'm sticking to makeup and PSP games.

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