B-E-A-You-tiful!

 

This is my hand after the Queens of the Stone Age show.  Since I am of age, I got a B on my hand (presumably because we were at the Beaumont Club).  Today, Andy kissed my hand and then looked at it and said 'B for beautiful.  My beautiful baby!'

Awwww....

Happy Birthday Andy!

Today, the love of my life turned 41.  For the next 4 months we are 16 years apart, from a numbers standpoint.  Despite that technicality, I feel closer to him than anyone else on earth (with a few close followers, but those in a purely unromantic way).

Happy birthday darling. I love you lots.  :)

Neet Stofed Bison

 Andy's parents are cleaning out their basement.  We've acquired some random things throughout this process, including a framed painting of a tree from Andy's high school years, a Star Wars sing-along .45, and a slew of unique coffee mugs.  They've gotten to a point where they have most of the big stuff gone, so now his mom is sorting through pictures and other bygone memories and divvying them up between Andy and his sisters.

So tonight we were sent home with a small box of old photos, slides, newspaper clippings, and whatnot.  Among all of the awesome pictures of Little Andy (honestly he looks exactly the same only shorter...it's creepy), we found a 'book' of sorts.  I'm unsure of the backstory - was this something he had to do for school?  Was this a way for him to pass the winter afternoons?  Nobody seems to remember, but whatever the story behind it, the book made me laugh so hard I thought I would pee my pants.  

Here is a page from it:

  

We're guessing first grade-ish.  He says I have to mention that his spelling has improved vastly since then.  Check.  I just imagine a miniature Andy, with his itsy beard & mustache, painstakingly sounding out these words, and it makes my heart melt.  So fucking adorable.

PARTY GRAS!

 

It wasn't as wild as the title implies, but I had a great time celebrating Fat Tuesday.  Andy & I decided to have a shrimp boil, since that was probably our most Louisiana-style option in the house.  It was of course delicious.  We made fruity booze concoctions, and spent the evening flashing each other for beads.  All in all, a successful way to celebrate Mardi Gras when you're poor and have to work early the next day!

Get 'Em While They're Young

The boys entranced by the gee-tar

 

Happy Anniversary!

Today marks 2 years since Andy & I got together (read: did it on the first date)

Here's to us!

 

I have to get back to being proactive about this blog.  Honestly, I don't remember what we were doing when I took this.  I know that Andy is wearing my Harry Potter readers...

Yeah, crap.  I got nothin'.  I believe we were watching a movie, but I can't tell you what it was.  OH!  We were watching Modern Family.

Hey, be glad I remembered that much.  

 

Happy Valentine's Day

Candlelight & Romance

 I'd love to start this post by telling you how much I hate Valentine's Day.  I really would.  I'm well aware of the fact that it's an obscenely commercialized "holiday", but c'mon, nobody (read: not enough people) hates on Christmas for that!  At least this one has a thinly-veiled genuine reason!  Thanks to estrogen, I love the idea of a day that revolves around letting people know how much you care about them.  I'm a firm believer that you should do that all the time, but let's face it: sometimes the people you love really piss you off.  This one day you can ignore all of that and be cheesy.  And it ain't easy bein' cheesy!  Although Andy & I do make it look so.   I also love holidays that allow me to eat like the raging fatty that I am, and so far we're 2/2 eating like kings on the infamous VD!

For the record, I also loved the holiday when I was single.  

To sum up our evening: We went to the grocery store.  Then I convinced Andy to go to Nick & Jake's to see if they still had some of the highly-coveted Boulevard Chocolate Ale on tap - they did!  I took a picture, but it disappeared from my phone, as if it never happened.  We each had 2, and it was everything I dreamed it would be.  Afterward we went home, cooked dinner, ate until we couldn't eat anymore, and promptly fell asleep.  What's not to love?!

Andy made me a delicious meal - lobster tail, steak, cauliflower, asparagus, AND rosemary garlic mashed potatoes

P.S.  I got a necklace, that has a heart and the band around the heart says 'Love Forever', a heart-shaped box of miniature Reese's, and a shamrock mug.  Good job, Love.  ...AND the BEST card ever: 

On the front it has metallic hearts down the side and says:

 

Words From My Heart

I don't want to control you,

or change you,

or make demands of you.

 

I don't want to be responsible for you,

or cling to you,

or need you to feel okay about me.

 

I just want to watch you smile,

hear your voice,

share with you the simple pleasures of life.

 

I want to touch your face,

hold your hand,

enjoy the comfort of our relationship.

 

But most of all, I want to...

 

And then inside it says:

 

make you my sex slave.

 

Happy Valentine's Day

Procrasturbator

Really I just like that word.
I have been sucking about taking pictures this week.  My main goal in life has become hiding from the cold, and there's just not much that's picture-worthy in that, unless you want to see pictures of Star Trek reruns and the many blankets on my bed.
In an attempt to make up for my shortcomings, I will share with you an excerpt from an email thread (loosely edited) between me and Andy from last Friday.

*Disclaimer: I should warn you that it is not in any way PC, and might offend some of the gentler folk out there.*

From: Angie
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2011 1:41 PM
To: Andy
Subject:

Ok.

I am having SERIOUSLY STANKY gas.  FYI.

From: Andy
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2011 1:43 PM
To: Angie
Subject: RE:

Fed (Ed.note: The person in the cube next to mine) must be your biggest fan right now.

(Ed. note: From this point forward I am just going to continue the color scheme and get rid of the headers to make this shorter...)

Hellllooooooo Milk Belly! 

He wasn’t here till a minute ago, but he’s about to get a facefull of rejected dairy. 

I am having DANGEROUS rumblings.  I’m a bit worried I’ll soon have a shart story too…..

 Use the handicapped stall.  That handle can come in real handy when you’re passing paddy water.

Such sage advice.  Thank you.

I'm here all week.

I LOVE YOU!

LMFAO!

Is that an Elmer’s glue bottle?  Who’s the irresponsible adult who left Elmer’s sitting around this pair?

The recipe card would look something like this:

DISASTER

Serves 8

2 mentally challenged adults

1 can cream soda

2 12-oz packages Tums

1 industrial-sized jar applesauce

1 bottle Elmer’s glue

Combine all ingredients.

LOL!

I can see that conversation starting with, “Let’s make a pizza!”

HAHA!  Ohhhh yes!

… It’s hard to tell what the one is doing above the bowl.  

Crushing a cigarette, looks like.

 LOL I thought the same thing!  Or rollin’ a j.  There’s just so much to take in.

The more I look at it, though, the less it looks like Elmer’s glue and the more it looks like a nasal decongestant inhaler.

Retard meth lab?

Yeah, and the Egyptians had flying saucers to build the pyramids.

Yadda Yadda

This weekend is shaping up to be seriously boring. I had loose plans with 2 or 3 people, and it seems none are materializing. I'm (mostly) okay with that; I don't mind a bum-around-the-house-in-my-PJs sort of weekend here and there, especially when it's winter outside. I would have liked to have gotten outside today, as it was nicer out than it has been or will be in a while. I couldn't think of anything to do out there, though. I probably could have crawled under the porch and destroyed the wasp's nests while they're empty - but what a yucky way to spend a Saturday! Instead, I watched The Social Network, and worked on some new cross-stitch patterns. I have one in particular that I love, the other one I worked on didn't turn out so well. I have some ideas to re-do it, though. I think I'll have to use smaller graph paper and aida for that one.

Anyway, I made myself some pickle nachos. That's the picture I chose for today, because it represents just how very little excitement I've had in my life over the past 24 hours. I thought a picture of the pattern might be misleadingly 'fun'.


I could have sworn I'd talked about pickle nachos here before, but I can't find where that's the case.

Andy saw on TV a while ago a show about the origin of 'bar foods', one of which was the nacho. He then came home and made these for me. He doesn't eat pickles (weirdo), but he said the original nacho was just fried corn tortilla triangles, with cheddar cheese melted on top and pickles on each triangle. Everything I've found on the Interwebs says it was just melted cheese and pickled jalapenos, so I'm wondering if he just misheard. However it happened, he made them for me and I've been addicted ever since!

You should try it!

This picture is my lazy version, with tortilla chips. When he makes them for me he always makes the chips from tortillas. Awww...

"Making Love"

Valentine's Day is rapidly approaching, and we are poor. Andy & I have agreed we'll just have a nice dinner and exchange cards. I ordered a letterpress card from Etsy, and I'm sort of thinking of trying to make him something. Had I planned better, I'd have saved the Edward Sharpe cross-stitch and given it to him now, but of course I did not.

If you know of any good homemade Valentine gift ideas let me know. I have a few things up my sleeve, but since I just sent the link to my blog to Andy this past week I'll refrain from posting them for now.

Broken Promises

We are trying to figure out which ugly sweaters to wear and what to wear them with for tomorrow. It will be week 4 of Ugly Sweater Fridays at work. Andy had chosen his sweater but had to figure out what to wear under it. I convinced him to try it with my mock turtleneck. I thought it looked good, but he decided against it. However, before he took it off I made him pose for a picture. I don't know if it's the tattoos against the sleeveless turtleneck or what, but I couldn't stop laughing when he was walking around in just this:

I promised him I wouldn't show anybody this, but it's the only picture I took all day and I didn't want you all (all zero of you!) to think I'd fallen off the wagon.

Sorry babe.

So Damn Exciting

Friday night at my house.

Day & Night

I took several pictures today and couldn't decide which to use. I narrowed it down to 2 but I can't choose out of them, so I'll tell you about both.

Tonight we hosted a board game night at the house, and so I spent the day getting a lot of cleaning done. Sunday is always my cleaning day anyway. Having been feeling pretty crummy this past week and trying not to get sick, I wasn't feeling like cleaning, so to get myself in the mood I started off by hanging the wall decals Mom got me for Christmas:

I like them. This is in the spare bedroom/computer room, and we've been spending a lot of time in there lately so I wanted to put some more of 'us' in that room. When I first bought my house my cousin moved into this room, and it's the only room we haven't repainted or done really anything with so I figured hanging pictures and cheerful things was a good route to go. I also hung a tie dye 'curtain', which does nothing to block the sun but it looks cute!

So then we had people over for board games. There ended up being 8 of us, which was probably the perfect size for something like that. We played Apples to Apples, Taboo, and Quelf. All are great games in a group setting, and good 'icebreaker' type games if not everyone knows each other. So I'll leave you with a picture from our game of Quelf. Andy drew a card that dictated he do ballet until the timer ran out:

Food...Yes, I'm That Guy.

I told myself I was going to get out of the habit of posting my food, and for the most part I've done well. Nights like this, 7:00 rolls around and I realize I haven't taken a picture for the day and I have no plans to do anything but sit on my ass for the rest of the evening....so long story short, I caved. In my defense, it was a particularly delicious meal.

Andy made slow-cooked achiote pork...I think I have discussed this before in here, because I just had a weird deja-vu feeling...Well, I can't find it so I'll explain (again?)...

Once upon a time, Andy saw a show on TV - I want to say it was the Travel Channel or Alton Brown. They were talking about how in ancient Latin American civilizations (think Mayans) they would roast an entire hog in the ground with hot rocks. They would rub it with adobo and wrap in banana leaves. Well, we don't have a hole or a hog, but he makes this version that he saw on TV once upon a time. You basically take a pork roast and you make a paste of achiote (preferably the block of paste, the seeds are a pain unless you have a spice grinder but they might be easier to find), and garlic and rub the pork with it. If you have time, marinade it overnight, but if not you can cook it right away. When you cook it, add the juice of about 8 limes and let it cook all day. This time he added broth too, since the limes we got weren't all that juicy.

Once it's done, shred the pork, and add a little bit of the drippings (sans fat) to the meat. Heat up some corn tortillas (we do it on a cast iron skillet), and add your favorite taco condiments....YUM! (Pico de gallo, cheese, & lettuce is my personal preference, served with a cold Dos Equis)

Snow Day!

Chillin' wit my dawg

It started snowing yesterday...hasn't stopped yet, and it doesn't look like it plans to anytime soon. We got up on time, and headed out to the driveway to start shoveling. There was probably about 4" at that point, and had Andy parked around the back of the house. I have a long driveway, and usually in winter weather we park up front so we don't have to clear the whole thing. We failed to plan this time, so an hour and a half later we'd reached the road. When we walked back up there was probably over a half an inch of snow accumulated where we'd started shoveling. My road looked terrible, and the meteorologist said if you wanted a drive time estimate to triple your regular commute. There were 13 interstate accidents at the time. I called in. If it were closer, or our car was better equipped to deal with these things (like maybe if it were even front wheel drive), I'd have come in. As it was, though, Andy wasn't very keen on the idea of heading out in it and I needed to study differential equations.

I got a lot of studying done, and I also created a Star Trek Online character and played it for breaks. It's actually pretty cool. Uh oh...

Now there's probably 6". It's beautiful, and I want to play in it. Andy doesn't share either of those sentiments. :(

Ugly Sweater Fridays

I became a first grade teacher at the thrift store.

For the month of January, the managers/admin folks at work have decided to have Ugly Sweater Fridays. Of course, owning nothing ugly but harboring a deep desire to participate in everything possible, I was off to the thrift store. There were only 2 ugly sweaters, and they both fit!

So far I only bought the one in the picture, I'm going to wait until next week to get the other one. Mostly I want an excuse to go back there and check again for ugly mens' sweaters, which they didn't have any of. They had some outdated ones, but nothing horrendous. I need to find the perfect ugly sweater so Andy can be a part of the fun too!

Can You Smoke It?

To that, in Andy's world, the answer is always yes. To be fair, though, we've really only had one thing that didn't turn out so great...Stick with the grill or indoors for asparagus...It tastes like ashes on a smoker. Stuffed mushrooms, though, two thumbs WAY UP on the smoker!

Once upon a time, probably during the summer, the topic came up of smoking a meatloaf. I can't remember now how it came up, but we Googled it to see if it had been done. Of course, it had. We decided to do it at some point, and left it at that.

A few nights ago, I suggested to Andy that we buy some ground beef to keep on hand. It's not something either of us love but it can be cooked straight from the freezer for quick meals if you haven't planned ahead. Much to my surprise, when he ran to the store that night for something specific he brought some home. 3 whole pounds, easily enough for 3-4 meals with leftovers!

....and then promptly proceeded to turn all 3 pounds of it into a meatloaf to be smoked.

Smoked Meatloaf

The good news is, even though he fell asleep and it cooked 2 hours longer than intended, it was pretty damn good.

Cross Stitching Success

Finished!

I was able to get this finished in the nick of time - with Mom's party and all the other Christmas ends to be tied up, I was a bit worried I wouldn't make it! I stayed up late last night until I fell asleep working on it, and finished it this morning. I have to say, I'm quite pleased with how it's turned out, and am even toying with the idea of starting an Etsy shop. I would mostly start off cross-stitching song lyrics, but if people wanted specific phrases I could do those too. Then, if I ever get good at any other crafty things I could put them there too. What do you think?

I hope Andy likes it!!!

Budding Ad Execs

Branding Geniuses

This is what Andy & I did while we ate lunch today. I'm not even sure how we started talking about it. Apparently though, we've invented a new laxative, called Turdlelax. The logo will be a turtle walking away from a pile of steaming poo, sporting a toothy grin.