Category: Food

Birthday Weekend

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My birthday weekend is coming to a close. It wasn’t terribly exciting, but nice. I worked on my birthday (Friday) but got lots of well-wishes from coworkers and friends via e-mail and Facebook which was really nice, and my Director treated me and my boss to lunch.

After work it was snowing a bit and I was exhausted, so instead of going out for dinner, we hit the McDonald’s drive-thru. If you think that’s lame, then I’ll have you know I also opened my presents from Joe the night before (with his permission, of course). He got me some perfume I’ve been wanting, a skin for my Kindle, flowers, a $15 iTunes gift card, and some chocolates.

Saturday morning I had a doctor’s appointment to follow up on my visit to the emergency room on New Year’s Eve. Afterward we decided to cash in on one of my birthday coupons and had lunch at Claim Jumper and then spent a quiet evening at home watching tv. I finally finished the Freaks & Geeks marathon I had DVR’d since I never paid it any attention when it originally aired a decade ago. Wow, what a great show; even better than Undeclared.

Today we made our weekly pilgrimage to Target where I cashed in on my free birthday drink from Starbuck’s, but since I’m staying away from the caffeine, Joe really got the benefit. For lunch I got my free bowl of noodles from Noodles & Company and then worked a few hours when we got home since last week was full of meetings which got me a bit behind. I did get some pleasant news in my work e-mail – our new CEO decided to add Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to our holiday rotation, so we’ve got a three day weekend coming up, woo hoo! Joe’s company has always had the day off but in the eight years at my company it’s never been a holiday for us. So that was nice news. Next weekend is going to be even better than this past one thanks to that and because it’s my skating “party”! I’m really looking forward to it.

Free Birthday Stuff

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I’ve been getting birthday coupons via e-mail for the past week and thought you might be interested in what you get from the following restaurants if you sign up and provide your birth date.

Applebees – Free Dessert Shooter
Arby’s – free 12 oz. shake with any purchase
Benihana – $30 certificate
Blizzard Fan Club (Dairy Queen) – one free blizzard treat (up to 16 oz. with the purchase of a 16 oz. blizzard)
Borders Rewards – Free small coffee or tea at Seattle’s Best Coffee or Borders Cafe
* Claim Jumper – complimentary entree (up to an $18 value; no other purchase necessary)
* Houlihan’s – one free entree up to $15 (no other purchase necessary)
Jersey Mike’s Subs – any regular sub and 22 oz. drink free (only good on your actual birthday)
LongHorn Steakhouse – complimentary dessert with the purchase of one adult entree
* Noodles & Company – free bowl of noodles (no other purchase necessary; maximum discount $7.50)
Old Country Buffet – $3 off adult dinner with purchase of a beverage (same coupon as what they send everyone, who cares?)
Pepe’s – free Mexican Dinner Entree with the purchase of a Mexican Dinner Entree and 2 beverages (Maximum $10 Value ONLY on Recipient’s Entree)
Red Lobster – $5 off two adult dinner entrees (similar coupon as can be found in the Sunday paper every week except $1 more in savings)
* Red Robin – free gourmet burger (no other purchase necessary)
Ruby Tuesday – free birthday burger (no other purchase necessary)
* Starbucks – free drink (any kind, any size)
Texas Roadhouse – free appetizer or sidekick of ribs with purchase of one adult entree
Wendy’s – $1 off any premium combo

A few non-food coupons I received:

* Classic Cinemas – free movie ticket (good through Feb 6th; definitely going to redeem this one)
Dave & Busters – $10 free game play
* World Market – $10 off a purchase of $10 or more (they sent this to me even though I signed up after my birthday!)

* Since I’ve continued to update this post past the original posting date, I went back and put a star next to every offer I redeemed.

Oh my shitty peanut butter cookie

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I’m off work for a whole week, woo hoo! I’m ridiculously excited about it because of the extra days off after Christmas. It will be nice to “play” with whatever new toys my hubby got me this year. He keeps teasing me about one present in particular so I’m curious to find out what it is. It better knock my socks off after he’s built up the anticipation so much.

I’m just happier in general this year because I’m feeling the Christmas spirit and we get to see my family, unlike last year which was lame.

After logging off work today (worked from home and got off early), I made peanut butter M&M cookies from a recipe I found in the coupon section of the paper. I’m not very happy with how they came out. First off, I can’t believe it called for an entire bag of M&Ms. I used half a bag and it was too much. Plus it ruined the flavor so I picked the M&Ms out of the remaining dough for the last two batches. Good thing I’m taking some to my parents’ because I’m not wasting my precious calories on them. The plain ones were better than the chocolate ones, but I’m not sure why I needed to include rolled oats. They really didn’t work in this particular recipe. Oh well, live and learn. Until this year I was perfectly fine with my hand mixer but now I’m starting to wish I had one of those stand mixers. I couldn’t bear to spend hundreds of dollars on one, though, so I’ll probably keep on trucking with the little hand mixer that is 10 years old.

Now I must go put ornaments on the tree. I’ve been procrastinating on that for a bit too long.

P.S. Go Bears!

P.P.S. I watched the first five EPs of Parks & Recreation Season 2 On Demand Monday night and now I’m asking myself why I didn’t get into the show sooner. It’s funny and Louis C.K. has a small part in a few EPs. I hope they add the rest of the season to On Demand before Season 3 starts in January.

P.P.P.S. I watched the sneak Preview of NBC’s new show, Perfect Couples, and while I liked it, I’m calling “cancelled in first season” right now.

P.P.P.P.S. What’s with people hating on rats? This is why I don’t make it public knowledge I have a pet rat – people are way too rude about it. They make great pets and I feel sorry for anyone who is too narrow-minded to realize that there’s more than just cats and dogs out there.

P.P.P.P.P.S. Has this gotten annoying yet? Just wondering. ;)

Holiday Preparation

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Alternate Title: Preparation H. ;)

Now I remember why the flickering snowflakes we used to put up when we lived in the apartment have been sitting in a box for the past 6 years – they won’t stay put on the patio door! We finally found some suction cups and it turns out they won’t stay stuck to the door. After spending a half hour putting them up, and even using tape to help keep them in place, they are probably going to come down. Maybe we can hang them over the garage or something because they are really cute, just a pain in the ass. Kinda like me. ;)

I plan on taking a picture of the lights on the house this year at some point but I’ve been too lazy and it’s been too cold outside. Those two do not a good combination make.

So are we the only ones who have not yet put up our tree? We are putting it up this year, we just haven’t gotten around to it yet. At this rate it will be up for less than two weeks, but that’s fine by me given the configuration of our house and no real good spot for the tree.

I’ve been baking cookies for the treat bags I plan on handing out to my coworkers tomorrow. Monday I made snickerdoodles. I’ve only had them once before and wasn’t that impressed, but the Better Crocker mix is awesome and the cookies turned out delicious! Today I decided to make Gingerbread Men cookies, except the dough wasn’t dry enough and every gingerbread man was torn limb for limb as I tried to pry them off the counter to put on the cookie sheet. Yes, I floured the counter and the rolling pin, the dough was just too moist. I gave up and made regular round cookies and they too were yummy. I used to be a die-hard Pillsbury fan but between these cookies and the moist chocolate cake I made for K in August I’m sticking with Betty Crocker for the foreseeable future.

I’m a little peeved with Target.com at the moment. I placed an order for a gift for E on Black Friday and was getting nervous that it hadn’t shipped two weeks later. Yesterday I got an email from them stating the item likely won’t be delivered until February because it’s out of stock. Gee, it wasn’t out of stock when I purchased it. Either they have inventory control issues, or they realized what a great deal this item was (and it truly was as I can’t find it anywhere for less than $40 more) and decided to use that cop-out instead of fulfilling my order. In any case, I canceled the order and found something comparable elsewhere and I don’t plan on shopping their online store again. I’m pretty sure I had an issue with them the last time I ordered years ago. It’s too bad since I love their store so much.

Bananafishbones

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Today has been just one of those days. I only worked a half day so I could make it to a doctor appointment. I’m not going to go into details here, but I’ve been having some issues lately and my doctor has no idea what’s wrong with me. It’s frustrating to say the least. So the afternoon was not off to a great start.

On my way home I stopped at the library to pick up some books and was informed my card was expiring at the end of the month. This library isn’t where my card was issued, so I’m grateful they told me, since the actual library where my card is from didn’t say a word to me and I was just there on Friday! So I added that to my list of errands to run as I made my way back home. My next stop was CVS to fill a prescription, but there was a problem with it and my doctor’s office was closed for lunch so I couldn’t wait for my drugs as planned.

I went back out to my car and started it up, intending to swing by my home library to take care of renewing my library card, but the check engine light on my car came on. The car was running fine, but one of the last times this happened it wouldn’t start after turning it off, so I didn’t want to take any chances, and went straight home, even though I literally passed the library on the way home. When I got home I turned off the car, waited a bit, and turned it back on. The check engine light is still on, but it starts and runs fine. A trip to Autozone once Joe gets home is in order to get a diagnostic code. It might be an oxygen sensor or something. I hope it’s nothing serious since I really do not want to start dumping a lot of money into maintenance for my car, nor do I want to buy a new one until the Escape has been paid off first.

When I got home I baked some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for our Thanksgiving potluck at work tomorrow. I love this event and missed it last year because we were in Phoenix, so I’m especially looking forward to it. I know it’s going to be a busy day having missed a half day and going through an audit (at work) right now, but I hope I can relax enough to enjoy all the food because after tomorrow I’m going to start eating better and stop buying crap. Hell, I’m going to stop buying so much food in general. I threw out a bunch of expired canned food when cleaning out the pantry this weekend. It made me sick to have wasted not just the food, but the money too because I was trying to “stock up” and save. There’s only two of us yet the pantry is filled with food, a lot of it junk. That ends today.