Fun & Games – Page 8 – Not Content to Crawl

BINGO, Bar, Meetup & Chocolate Expo

Posted onFebruary 8, 2016February 19, 2016

What a busy weekend! It was fun busy, though!

Friday night we met up with friends at Portillo’s followed by BINGO at the nearby church. One of the girls won $15 and the other won $500! She wanted to celebrate so we went to a bar where she bought us all a round. I tried a new drink my other friend ordered for me which tasted like a slurpee. I think it had blue vodka in it but I really don’t remember what it was called. We didn’t end up going home until 1 am. It was a great time. I love this group of people and wish we could get together more often.

Instead of checking out a craft show Saturday morning as planned we decided to sleep in and make breakfast burritos. Then we did a little grocery shopping, including Costco where I bought this delicious dark chocolate.

The bag was $10 but ounce for ounce it’s cheaper than Ghiradelli and light years more delicious.

Saturday evening we attended our second ever Meetup for a game night at a pizza place in Villa Park. We already had pizza the night before (Joe got the munchies at the bar and ordered a large pizza at the place next door since they deliver to the bar) so we ate a little lighter. Joe got a salad and I had a grilled chicken sandwich, both of which were good. The evening started out a little awkward (the host wasn’t that great about introducing people) but once everyone was finished eating and started playing games the conversation flowed more easily.

There was this one girl sitting to my right who I tried making conversation with but she’d answer me without making eye contact and not do anything to keep the conversation flowing. I thought maybe it was her first meetup and she was nervous, but she said no, so I’m not sure if she has a hard time socially or she just didn’t like me. I gave up after multiple attempts to be friendly with her. I’m the kind of person who will only make so much effort before my attitude is f you.

There were two women who sat at the end of the table to my left who were much friendlier so we ended up forming a group with them and another guy and girl to play Rummikub and Sequence before personally deciding to call it a night at 9 pm. The meetup space was reserved until 11 pm but I was just too tired from the night before and couldn’t stop yawning! I was in bed by 10:30.

Sunday morning we ate a quick breakfast at McDonald’s before checking out the Chocolate Expo at the arboretum.

We ended up buying a chocolate covered Twinkie which was delicious, as well as a chocolate covered jalapeÃ±o, a peanut butter cup, and a mini bundt cake.

I ate the twinkie last night and it was delicious. The rest of the snacks will probably be eaten after dinner tonight.

Recently I purchased a few new shirts on clearance at Target, including a rather clingy cowl neck thin sweater.

I sent a photo of me wearing it to my cousin.

I paired it with a pair of fleece lined black leggings I got at Walmart for $9 and my knee high black boots and wore the outfit to the Expo. Needless to say, Joe couldn’t keep his eyes, or hands, off me. We ended up going out for some boneless wings for lunch just so he could stare at me longer since he knew once we were home for the rest of the day I’d end up changing into my pajamas (e.g. my fleece Star Wars pants I can’t stop wearing). I love how after 15 years he still makes me feel sexy.

Sunday evening, as everyone knows, was the Super Bowl. I couldn’t care less about football but I joined Joe on the couch to catch the commercials and half time show. My fave commercial was Ryanville, although I did miss some so I’ll have to check YouTube. I made jalapeÃ±o poppers, toasted ravioli, and guacamole to snack on. I didn’t eat much since I was still full from the wings I had for lunch.

I also tried to watch the Puppy Bowl (muted) via the Xfinity app on my iPad but that was an exercise in futility. First I realized that despite scheduling it to record on the DVR several days prior, there wasn’t any evidence of it on the DVR. I only missed the first half hour so I started the recording, waited another half hour, and attempted to watch it but it froze up and crashed multiple times so I gave up. I swear the Xfinity app is such garbage! I often pull up an episode of Dateline or 20/20 when I’m cleaning on Mondays so I can listen and not once has the experience been seamless. The show will randomly pause and I have to stop what I’m doing to press play which is annoying since the iPad will be in a different room than the Bluetooth speaker I keep with me while I clean.

Extended Birthday Weekend

Posted onJanuary 11, 2016

I worked Mon-Fri this past week so I could have my birthday off on Thursday and Joe took Thursday and Friday off to spend it with me.

Thursday I woke up to this:

Then we went to Egg Harbor Cafe for brunch and to the Container Store. Believe it or not, I walked out empty-handed. I love browsing that place so much but can’t bring myself to buy anything most visits. There was one thing that caught my eye but the line was ridiculously long for a weekday afternoon so we just left.

For dinner we went to Happy Elephant and then stopped at Carson’s to browse. Joe ended up buying a faux leather jacket that was 60% off. He looks quite sexy in it. I got a small wallet, but I teased him about his purchase and wished him a happy birthday. LOL

We only went into Carson’s to kill time before an improv show at the Laugh Out Loud theater.

For my own reference, here’s the actors we saw that night:

DJ Cashmere
Jay Gish
Jin Kim
Sean Sullivan
Rudy Voit

There were some other people in the first group we saw (the above are considered the main players) but they aren’t listed on the website which is unfortunate because the one guy really reminded me of someone and I wanted to know more about him. Oh well.

It wasn’t very crowded so we were in the first row which was cool because you could see everything well, but a little nerve-wracking since the actors depend on the audience for suggestions and would put you on the spot sometimes. That stuff makes me anxious but I did ok and by the end was shouting out my own suggestions. It was a good time. The last time we were there was nearly six years ago with a group of friends but two of them didn’t enjoy the experience as much as we did and one is sadly no longer with us as she passed away last year.

After the show we stopped at this interesting burger bar called Kuma’s Corner where they play heavy metal music. Usually that sort of stuff gives me a raging headache but I really liked the atmosphere. Too bad the food wasn’t all that. We shared an order of fried pickles and a burger, neither of which impressed us. That being said, we’d go back to try something else since we liked the place overall and the staff was very nice. Oh, and being a bar there was some interesting graffiti in the bathroom. I memorized a few to relate to my brother since we share the same dirty sense of humor but I won’t post it here other than to say that one gem had to do with farts and the other with penises. Oh, and someone drew a shark wearing a tutu on the wall which cracked me up.

Earlier in the week I asked a couple of friends whether they wanted to meet up for Friday might BINGO but only one of the four was available, so I ended up asking my mom if we could stop by for a game night instead. I would have loved to have a party at our place but my mom can’t visit due to her sensitivities, so I basically invited myself over instead. It was just me, Joe, my parents, and Brother #1. We had Panda Express (for me) and pizza (for my dad, whose birthday was on the 5th) as well as homemade chocolate cupcakes my mom made. She also bought me a yellow cake. “What, no lemon?!?” I exclaimed (she used to bake me lemon cakes when I was a kid).

Brother #1, who already gave me my main birthday present back at Christmas since he wasn’t sure when he’d see me next, gave me some dark chocolate, Sour Patch Kids, three boxes of Nerds (“what are you implying?” I asked him with a smirk), and this card because he’s a punk. It did make me laugh, though.

We played Smartass and Taboo which was a blast. My brother was my partner for Taboo and we beat Joe and my mom by one point. It was a fun evening! Even though we left just before 11 pm we didn’t get to bed until 2 am because we were a little wired when we got home.

Saturday we ran some errands including stopping at Noodles & Company for my free bowl of birthday noodles and Jamba Juice for a free five fruit frenzy. Glad I’m done with all that eating now! Once we got home early afternoon we hunkered down to ride out the snow that was expected to fall (although it wasn’t as much as they predicted). We watched Sleeping With Other People which was better than I was expecting, if not predictable.

Sunday I slept in a bit and we lazed around the house until about 4 pm when we decided to go out and grab some boneless wings.

Today I did my regular Monday cleaning and made some banana breakfast muffins. Not exactly looking forward to going back to work. I really enjoyed my five day weekend!

Gift Wrapping, Luong-Loi, Game Night

Posted onDecember 20, 2015

I only had one thing on my to do list on Friday, and that was to wrap Joe’s gifts. I’m happy to report that I got through it. I even wrapped E’s gifts even though I don’t love gift wrapping because I stink at it. I put my newest favorite show – It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – on Netflix and got to work. It was a nice relaxing day with a little productivity thrown in.

Saturday we had lunch at Luong-Loi – our favorite Vietnamese restaurant. It was a long time coming. See, sometime over the summer we happened to drive past the restaurant’s location when I noticed the storefront was completely empty. No sign or anything. The place was just gone. I was in shock, and extremely sad. I’m not sure what possessed me to check out their website about a month or so later, but I was excited to learn that they were actually moving the restaurant across the street and would be reopening in October. Except they didn’t. We happened to drive past the old location again and there was a sign in the window that said “we went back to Vietnam”. I was so confused, but I thought that meant they changed their mind and wouldn’t be returning after all. Finally they started communicating via their Facebook page that they were back from vacation and working on the new restaurant. There were some delays thrown in so their reopening date kept getting pushed back until they finally opened this past Friday.

We were so excited we ended up order four dishes – mongolian beef, garlic chicken, sweet & sour chicken, and kung pao chicken. With the exception of the beef, which tasted fishy, everything was as delicious as I remember. I particularly like the kung pao (which I’m eating right now as I type out this entry, in fact). I’m also happy that each dish comes with it’s own side of rice unlike before where they’d bring one plate of rice that wasn’t enough (and not bring out any more so I’d have to make more rice at home to go with the leftovers). I’m bummed that the mongolian beef isn’t good anymore, but happy the kung pao is since they introduced lunch specials for only $8. Much cheaper than just ordering a ton of food like we did.

Saturday night we were invited to a game night at my friend, C’s, house. We go to lunch every so often and trade magazines (I get her People magazines which is awesome since that subscription is expensive) and she’s been to our house a couple of times, including once for a game night with her husband years ago. We brought Uno Attack with us which we played first. Then we played one of their games, Pay Day, which we’ve never played before. It’s fun! I won too. Hehe. Their cat finally came downstairs after we had been there a couple of hours and even let me pet her which they said is unusual so I felt special. She’s such a beautiful cat – grey with green eyes. And she doesn’t shed just from being touched, unlike the two orange kitties I was pet-sitting earlier this month. The time just flew by – we arrived at 6 pm and ended up leaving just after 10:30 pm. It was a fun night!

Weekend Happenings

Posted onOctober 6, 2015October 6, 2015

I saw two new animals I’ve never seen in the wild before this weekend:

A skunk on our street when we were coming home after spending the evening at my parents’ house on Saturday.
A Blue Jay being quite vocal at the arboretum on Sunday morning.

I know both of these animals are native to the area but I have never seen either. I certainly can smell the skunks most nights, though! I swear our town is overflowing with them.

The weekend as a whole looked like this:

Friday night we were invited to play BINGO with a friend at the VFW. Didn’t win squat (but at the least the pizza was good).

Saturday morning we stopped at the newly opened Chik-fil-a for breakfast, then did some grocery shopping at Meijer.

Saturday evening we headed to my parents house to celebrate my mom’s birthday. We brought over fried chicken, a rotisserie chicken, chicken tenders (specifically for Brother # 1), broccoli, and mashed potatoes. After dinner we played What’s Yours Like and Pictionary Jr. with my mom and both brothers. My mom tried to give me $10 for some of the food; we ended up playing a game of giving back the money by “hiding” it. I won because I slipped it under the rug by the stairs when I was putting my boots on to leave. Right in front of everyone, no less! No one found it (even though my mom admitted she went around the house after I left looking for it because she knew I had left it there) until the next day when I told them where to look. I don’t want their money. I’m not rich by any means but I don’t feel right taking money from them either.

Sunday morning Joe went with a friend of ours to a gun show and then when he got home we headed over to the arboretum to check out the scarecrows (photos will be posted later this week). On the way home we picked up some Mexican food which we ate while watching the Bears game (they finally won this year).

Our DVR decided to act like a jerk and not show the Bears game on it until after the game was over. That sucked because we got home a half hour into the game and had planned to catch up via the recording. It usually shows everything even while it’s recording so I don’t know why it didn’t this time. On top of that, last night a bunch of really old recordings, some dating back to January of this year, reappeared on the DVR. I had to go through it and delete all the stuff we’ve already watched. Way to go, cable company! It’s not like I don’t spend a fortune on your service or anything.

Monday was cleaning day since I put it off all weekend.

By the way, I am already hating the cold. Even though it was 70 degrees when I left work today it was freezing in the office and I had to pull out my heated floor mat. I’m going to have to dress in multiple layers from now until April and I’m not happy about it.

Nature Weekend

Posted onAugust 25, 2015

Our weekend centered around nature activities which is always right up my alley.

Saturday we visited the Chicago Botanic Garden and saw the famous Corpse Flower that’s been in the news lately. It wasn’t our reason for visiting, actually, but still pretty cool to see. Our favorite sighting, however, was a ruby-throated hummingbird hanging out in the gardens when you first enter. There were two hanging out when we first arrived and we spotted another one two hours later when we were leaving. I wish I had remembered my 250mm lens but the picture I got wasn’t too bad considering I only had the 135mm.

Some of my favorite photos from our visit:

Saturday evening we visited my parents and played our newest game – Exploding Kittens. It was quite fun! We also played Cards Against Humanity with Joe’s homemade cards. Brother # 1 ended up staying up until the wee hours of the morning coming up with more ideas for all the blank cards we still have. I got an email at 3:18 am with a huge list. He’s funny.

Sunday we did some grocery shopping in the morning since it was overcast and rainy. That cleared up around noon so we headed to Morton Arboretum and drove around. I remembered my 250mm lens this time and captured what I believe is a white-breasted nuthatch.

Monday I met up with a friend at Cosley Zoo so I could give her some LEGOs and playdoh stuff for her kids. I figured why not give it to someone who will make use of it. It’s not like we’re going to play with it anymore. I held onto the playdoh too long as it was and the majority of it dried up but there were a few cans that were still good, plus a ton of accessories to shape the playdoh. It was hard parting with it because I have such fond playdoh memories but we haven’t played with it for over five years so there was no sense in letting it continue to take up space in the closet. Plus it freed up a plastic storage tote that I can re-purpose.

Anyway, I met her two children who are super adorable and pretty well-behaved for being a year and a half and four years old. The four year old, C, was NOT happy when we were ready to leave, however. He cried all the way back to the car. Poor guy. It was nice to catch up with her and meet her kids. I wish we could hang out more often but she’s so busy with family stuff, plus she lives about an hour away so the timing never seems to line up. I’m hoping she and her husband can make another game night. I’d like to have one sometime in October I think. Gotta unleash Exploding Kittens on more people!