Day312 - Yeah, it's a little like Heaven pie.

Friday, November 7, 2008: High Street Pub: Pumpkin mouse pie

Troy, Allen and I met Yana at the High Street Pub. I went here for my newness sometime either this year or last year. It is a quite restaurant with food that is more expensive (but good!) than what you expect for a Pub.

I had some kind of roasted pork tenderloin, veering away from the pulled pork that I would have probably liked more. I tried some of Yana's swordfish and it was really good. Much better than mine.

Yana and I split this. I think it was a pumpkin mouse pie, but Deb (our waitress and probably coolest lady on the planet) called it Heaven pie. And it was! Very very good especially if you are a pumpkin lover (I am a terrible pumpkin lover).

Is it as good as my Heavenly Mango bites. No. But that doesn't mean that I wouldn't eat a whole damn pie.




Later that night, after Yana and I fussed over Mac and Dank fussed over Toofy, Troy, Allen and I had a little Nerf war. Here is a secret - Allen likes to shoot you in the face, whether you are paying attention to him or not. I immediately changed my opinion that I would ever want to play paintball with him - Yana you were right!

Here is a video. We shot each other with beautiful freedom nerfs.

Day313 - Is that a grape?

Saturday, November 8, 2008: OLV Bazaar: mystery cake

Today we headed to the OLV bazaar to eat, push Anna around in a stroller and check out some crafts. Also, to lose at basket raffle.

We met Mark, Jodie and Anna and drove to OLV. I really wanted perogies, but they were already sold out at 1 p.m.. That would NOT happen back home - not until at least 6. But I don't believe that these were made by someone's eastern European grandma.

Troy and I split some crazy cake that I did not take a picture of. I looked like carrot cake, but had raisins, pineapple, and Troy said, cherries. And nuts and some other craziness. It was very good and I had a hard time stopping eating it.

Afterwards, we went to Target with M, J & A. Troy modeled this over priced silver wreath atrocity.



He is cute.

**How the rest of the day went - so Melissa remembers**
I talked on the phone with Rick about life and friends and death and life and all that other fun stuff. Kyle and Carla came over and they got to see Mac and eat Pizza and marvel at how large this iMac is. We ate pizza and Troy shot me in the eyeball with a nerf gun. Directly in the eyeball.

Day316 - Your lady friend's friend.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008: My office: My Monthly

http://www.mon.thly.info

I found this site, MyMontly, somewhere on the interwebs. I forget all kinds of shit - my name occasionally - so this is a pretty rad way for me to remember when my life will suck, albeit temporarily. It is also a good way to remind Troy the absolute joy of his life will be a wretched biotch in no time.




It's really easy to enter the first day of your Aunt Flo's visit. Point and click. I only write down this info sporadically, if at all, so my history has a little bit of info missing.




It compiles all of your info into a status bar. Some of these functions are really only pertinent to you breeders out there - temperature, phases and whatnot. It will also tell you when you will be ovulating, which I only kind of care about so as to know when is the ABSOLUTE WORSE DAY to get it on. I'm keeping my vag free of babies one day at a time.




So, ladies, have at it. Or, dudes have at it if you want to keep an eye on your lady friend's friend. I'm actually kind of psyched to have someone, even if it is inanimate, keep track of this for me.

Day314 - I've made better

Sunday, November 9, 2008: My Kitchen: Peach Crostata

Today, Troy and I raked 19 bags of leaves in the backyard. My back hurts and we spent a big chunk of the afternoon napping. I think it is my first nap in months - although waking up stuck to a leather couch is not always awesome.

I made an Apple Crostata a couple of weeks ago (haven't written about that one yet!) that was to die for.

This one was ok, but not great and I'm ok with that. I think it could probably use more peach and no ginger. Ah, what the hell - they all can't be winners.



If I could get points for style, it would be a winner. This recipe made 2 crostatas.

2 peaches - sliced
2 t cinamon
1 t ginger
2 t brown sugar
2 T of chopped walnuts
1 sheet of pre-made pie shell

Mix the first 5 ingredients. Stuff in shell and bake in 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Really the easiest thing I know to make.

Day315 - Bangers and Mash

Monday, November 10, 2008: My kitchen: Bangers and Mash

I wanted kielbasie. But our sad kielbasie was sitting in the freezer for 6 months and was beyond freezer burnt.

Instead, we cooked up a couple of Turkey sausages that were in the freezer from something or other I cooked this year. They were hot because we do not like mild here.

Troy brought home some perogies via Jess, via Greg, via OLV (they use sour cream in the potato batter!). It was, ofcourse, super fucking good.

Day215 - And I ate perogies… what could be better?

Saturday, August 2, 2008: Macungie, PA: Das Awkcht car show.

http://www.awkscht.com/

Tre, Nick, Troy, Tyler and I all headed out near Bethlehem for one of the Country's largest Antique and Classic Car shows.


There were cars here I did not know existed. Others were things you've seen on TV or movies. Just a wide variety of the history of wheels in motion. These are not all of the pictures - because my camera died before I took pictures of everything - only my favorites.

But, let's start with the AM. We went huckleberry picking with Pop-pop. It was crazy and I didn't want to go home.




On the way there, we saw this car. Sunroof FAIL.




This is officially my new favorite car. It is a Nash Metropolitan and probably the coolest fricking thing ever made.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_Metropolitan





They had a flea market that was selling all kinds of crazy stuff to make up to the wife and kids for dragging them around in the rotten heat. This was one of the cooler things there, a Poland seal for the grill of your car.




This was another super cool car. I think you can see I'm trending small lately.



It's a 1951 Crosley. I have about a dozen pictures of all the models that were built. Everything from Truck to cars and convertibles. I am hearting one big time.



One of my favorites was this. I think it's a 1904 Packard - but I might have the year wrong. It ran on steam and smelled like Knoebles. Seeing these guys drive them around was pretty spectacular.




I would much rather have one of these than any Camaro or Mustang. This is an automobile at it's most simple and elegant form.


Afterwards, we stopped at The Port Clinton Inn. I got this Buffalo cheeseburger which may be the biggest burger that I've ever gotten. It was quite a surprise - even though it was not as hot as I like.




Thanks Nick for taking us. We had a great day even if the end was a little dicey.

Day214 - Love affairs with paper samples.

Friday, August 1, 2008: Yana's work: Printing invites.

Yana very graciously agreed to print the text for the invite. She was so lovely for doing so.

I didn't take a picture while there, mostly because I was freaking out about getting these suckers done. I can show you what they looked like afterwards.

A couple of days ago, I cut all these ribbons. Then Troy sat in front of a very hot stove in July to seal all of the ribbon's edges on a hot burner. It was really a detail that helped make them look uber-professional. The next day, I spent i glueing 300+ pieces of ribbons into these bows. Today I glued the little gold seals.




Then, we had to affix the printed invite that Yana so graciously printed and cut.




The purple was a lovely irridescent paper. The white is an 80# bright white Cougar. It was as gorgeous as paper can get - Cougar is the way to go.




There was a lot of glueing. Then, it's little ribbon safety belt kept it together.




I know that you can't tell from this picture, but the outer paper was a very, very, very nice irridescent cream paper. It is probably the nicest paper that I've ever used. Ever.




Here is a line-up.




This is the box.




This was only half of the 150 that I was contracted to do. If I didn't have to rush home to Frackville to meet some prior obligations, I would have finished the whole of them. I'm guessing total hours for this is around 16-20 hours. That's a broad guess. And that is not counting time to nurse busted fingers from paper cuts and glue guns. But they are gorgeous. Probably the nicest I've ever made.

And I couldn't have gotten it done without Yana or Troy. So thank you both so, so much.