Garages, and the crap therein.

So I live in a neighborhood where everyone has a garage... oddly enough as we were heading out today, I realized something. Over half of these people don't park their cars in their garages. Ya know why??



TRASH!!!!!!!

Seriously, the lady living next door to us puts this picture to SHAME. Laundry baskets, tall standing fans, big wall pictures, boxes of who knows what... YIKES. There is even one house down the road that has an ENTIRE wall of shelving on one side of their garage full of ........ shoes. Yes. 100+ pairs of shoes in the two-car garage.

From what I've seen anyone that parks in the driveway here has a garage that would rival an evil Halloween corn maze, except there's no room for walking paths. Call me crazy, but I have a funny feeling that junkola in there isn't going to be used anytime soon... why not, hmmmm, throw it out? I know we didn't pay extra for a two-car sized crap storage unit attached to our house. Our cars go IN the garage. Not in the driveway, while mounds upon piles of those creepy little ceramic frogs that sit in your garden take over your garage. Or old desk furniture. Or 200 pairs of worn out, fashion-backwards Payless* shoes. I just can't stand clutter in large, ominous amounts! (You know all those garden gnomes are going to amass at the foot of your bed one night, staring at you...........)


(Note that I do love Payless, just in moderation!)

Post-Thanksgiving relaxation time!

Is it possible to STILL be sleepy from all the turkey you ate yesterday?! :O

I hope everyone had a wonderful and tasty Thanksgiving!! This was my first time cooking a full Thanksgiving meal, and everything came out WONDERFUL - no kitchen mishaps, nothing cooked improperly, everything done at the same time and nice and hot with juicy turkey! How in the heck did I do THAT?! :)

And today ....... BLACK FRIDAY.


In all of my shopping days I have never gotten up before the butt-crack of dawn to do Black Friday, with two exceptions. One was with an ex-boyfriend when we still lived in Massachusetts, to drive up bleary-eyed with the headlights on over the border of New Hampshire (no sales tax up there) about an hour away, to some sort of Best Buy type place where the line wrapped around the store and it was about two degrees out. And we didn't even make it out of the store with anything. Boy, that sure was delightful!

The second exception was today; Mr. Cats and I have been wanting a Playstation 3 for years now, and they had a great deal at GameStop where you could get the system plus 3 free games, so we went half and half on it and got one at 5:30am today. :) AND the best part, it only took about half an hour, so I was able to come back home and slide into bed around 6am. Sweeeet! We've been playing Gran Turismo and Little Big World all day! :)

Tonight we're going to get some Starbucks and go to the big tree lighting~! Can't wait!

And oh, I got an award from the lover-ly Meg over at Lost in Thought! Thank you!!!!!! :)

I'm a Superior Scribbler! WOOHOO!! :D I'm supposed to tell seven facts about myself, then tag some other folks to join in the fun. Okay, here goes...

1. On the video game topic, I started off playing an Atari when I was 5, then got my very first Nintendo at 9.... and it aaaaaall went from there! I've been playing video games all my life!

2. I used to hate salsa, but now I ADORE it. One of my favorite snacks is just a big bowl of tortilla chips and some fresh salsa.

3. I often have many, many dreams in the course of one night. Sometimes they are weeeeird!! But rarely do I have nightmares.

4. I am a homebody - I am generally happiest when I am at home, relaxing and doing things around the house. Sometimes I like to go out for extended periods of time or travel, but most weekends you will find me happily chillin' at the house. :)

5. I am claustrophobic! We were watching a Mythbusters show last night where they were trying to bust the "three inch punch" out of the coffin from Kill Bill, and they had a guy in a coffin, and the close quarters camera really started to freak me out.... eee....

6. I never dreamed I could be so lucky as to live by the beach - but here I am!!! :D 10 minutes away! (5 on a good day!)

7. I was one of the first kids in my kindergarten class to start reading; when I was 5 I read The Night Before Christmas all by myself at our Christmas pageant.

Yay! Now to tag some awesome bloggers...

Laura over at Anything But Blonde; she's a military wife living over in Germany, and she posts some LOVELY photos!!

Jessica at Have We Met?, a fellow North Carolina-ian (LOL) who has been posting about her amazing honeymoon in Asia, and I want to hear more! :D

Luna at Magic City College Girl (I'm a Magic Smaller-town Working Girl!! :D)

And Smileyfreak over at Keep Smiling, Smileyfreak! never fails to make ME smile with her LOL-worthy posts!! :D



Wow, this entry turned out a LOT longer than I imagined!! PHEW!! Will definitely make a holiday card post this weekend, but until then ... happy leftovers!!! :)

Once Upon a Time Wednesday...

Once upon a time...

When I was a very small cat herder (about 9 years old), I took Taekwondo. It's a korean martial art, and I actually ended up taking it for about 12 years, and am a second degree blackbelt now! But that is beside the point. Anyway, at the end of every class, our instructor would read us a passage from the Tao Te Ching while we were in "mah-kyum" (Korean for meditation... I can pronounce it great, but probably butchered the spelling! Sorry!!) After every class he would read a different passage, and after about 12 years of listening to said passages, they became deeply ingrained in my brain.

The Tao is actually a very old Chinese text written by Lao Tsu - it contains a lot of very short, very thought provoking philosophies - advice and lessons for life, let's say. Since it is a very old text, about 2500 years, it has thusly been translated many, MANY times, by many different people. The thoughts and ideas of the original Chinese were there, but every translation was a little bit different, so the words and sentence structure would vary.

Flash forward many years, to about 2006, when I am a more grown up cat herder and out on my own. I decide I want a copy of this book, the one I grew up listening to, that exact translation. But every book store I went to had about 500 other differently translated versions! Okay, I'm exaggerating. But it was still quite a hunt.

I managed to stumble upon one copy in a Barnes and Noble that was the 25th anniversary edition of the same, beat up old book that my "Sah-boom-nim" (Korean for master/instructor) would read from... :) And I was delighted!!

During my search, I would always flip to a certain passage in the book to see if it was worded exactly, then I knew I had the right one. Since I had no idea who had translated the copy I grew up on, I had to rely on my favorite passage by memory to judge it right! I'm going to share it with you; I have a handful of favorite passages in the book, but this one definitely means the most to me.

FIFTY

Between birth and death
Three in ten are followers of life,
Three in ten are followers of death,
And men just passing from birth to death also number three in ten.
Why is this so?
Because they live their lives on the gross level.

He who knows how to live can walk abroad
Without fear of rhinoceros or tiger.
He will not be wounded in battle.
For in him rhinoceros can find no place to thrust their horn,
Tigers no place to use their claws,
And weapons no place to pierce.
Why is this so?
Because he has no place for death to enter.



What do you think it means? I think it means, live your life for the present, make every day the most important day of your life, because it is the one you are experiencing right now, and don't be afraid to live and experience life before it passes you by!! :)


I probably won't post until after Thanksgiving, so I hope everyone has a wonderful, relaxing holiday cherishing the things that are really important in life - something we should do every day! ...Oh, AND eat lots of turkey, stuffing, potatoes... we definitely should NOT do that every day, or else we'd all be 700 pounds with coronary failure, LOL :D HAPPY THANKSGIVING Y'ALL!!

I'm BAAACCCKKK!!

TA-DAAAA!!! I'm back, up and running with internet at the new and VERY AWESOME house!! We are all moved in (mostly; save for a few boxes of stuff hanging around) and couldn't be happier!! :D The move went smoothly, the cats are mostly adjusted, and all is well. Now if only Finnegan would stop meowing over and over at night... boy, you know where you are! ARGH!

I'm going to try valiantly to catch up with my Google Reader, but I don't know how successful I'll be... wish me luck! ;)

Tonight Mr. Cats and I went to buy our Turkey Day dinner - turkey, stuffing, a nice bottle of red wine, etc. etc. We are going to make yummy muffins that morning for breakfast, watch the Macy's Day parade (and the dog show afterwards!), all while cooking some yummy food... then... EAT!!! And finish off the day with Peanuts Thanksgiving on TV. :) We're very excited to have our first Thanksgiving together in our cozy new home!!

I'm reading a book lately that is really thought-provoking and puts a lot of things into perspective... it's called Nickel and Dimed and it's about this journalist that goes out into three areas of the US and tries to get by for a month, by herself and on her own, on minimum wage. Granted it was written in the early 2000's so it's a little outdated, but it still is an amazingly eye-opening read, especially with the economy the way it is today. I'm glad to read this book around Thanksgiving, because it really does make me thankful for what I do have -- a lovely home, an amazing boyfriend, a loving mom, two great cats, even my half job... we have food on the table every night, a warm place to sleep, and more than enough to make me happy. :) There are so many out there that are just barely making it by... this is a great book and I'd recommend it to anyone that's interested in just how rough it can get, or just to put things into perspective. Enjoy what you have! Be thankful! And, to end off on one of my favorite quotes...

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." --Plato

Let's all engage in some random acts of kindness this week for Thanksgiving!! :D

Moving Time, and a short hiatus!

Yeah, it's getting to be that time.

MOVING DAY.

So I'm taking a brief hiatus until next week when we are settled in and have working internet. I am just exhausted lately and taking naps every chance I get!

But by next week, smooooth sailing! (I hope!)

See you then!! ;)

I'm a dummy..

So a lot of people are posting search results for their blog - like what people searched for to find them.

I'm a dummy but I want to play too!! Where do I find this in Google?? Aiieee...

In other news, Mr. Cats and I are baking chocolate chip cookies!! Want one? :)


Also, remember CardFest!!! :) I've gotten some emails and I know I haven't replied to a few yet, but I'm getting there y'all! Clicky to read all about it if you haven't already! One of my future entries is going to be about where to get cute, CHEAP cards... and some pictures! :D

CARDFEST!!!!!!

(Sorry for such a short entry... things are SO BUSY here... T-minus four days until the big move!! Can't WAIT to get our stuff over there and settle in!)

Oh... it's coming...

That's right, less than two weeks now. November 26th. The day where you're going to eat so much you're going to want to wear the elastic pants!

YEAH! Thanksgiving! I didn't mean to overshadow it with my CardFest post - no jumping ahead in the holiday line. Thanksgiving is one of my favorites; IMO it really kicks off the holidays. :) So, this year, we were going to have Mr. Cats' family up here for Thanksgiving but there was some confusion and it looks like it will just be the two of us. But honestly, I don't mind at all because after all the whirly stress of this move, I'm more than happy to make a small meal for just the two of us to RELAX!!

So, without further adieu, I've compiled a pictorial of tasty things I will cook and happily eat! If you're hungry you may want to stop reading here!

Mmm... yes... the staple of any great Thanksgiving dinner! (Unless you're vegetarian, in which case, insert the awkward silence.) I never have turkey any other time of year, well except for the occasional turkey club, but that's SO not even in the same league as a roast turkey fresh from the oven!! Mmm... warm and juicy and tasty, and definitely prompting a nice nap in a few hours.


Turkey and potatoes go hand in hand, right?? These mashed potatoes look SCRUMPTIOUS! I love to add a little sour cream to mine when I'm mashing them, along with milk and butter. Carve a little hole for gravy in the middle and you're good to go!

I may love cornbread more than any other bread on the planet! How southern! I'll probably make this a day ahead of time, so we can warm some up with butter for breakfast (yes, I'm drooling), and have a slice with our dinner! Mr. Cats is into jalepeno cornbread, but I'm all about the tried and true original. :)

Look, more carbs! But this holiday is SO not about watching your diet! Bring on the carbs, I say!!! And what yummier way to have them than fresh stuffing. (Stuffing is also full of sodium a lot of times, but there are brands out there that are healthier for you!) At my house when I was young, we used to cook the stuffing in the bird, but now I'll just fire up the stove and cook it that way. Now I love cornbread stuffing, but for Thanksgiving I'll usually just go with the regular turkey stuffing. Don't mess with success!

Mr. Cats is not a fan of cranberry sauce!! What in the?? Yeah, it's true, but that always means more for me! ;) (And isn't that container up there adorable?) I'm going to embarrass myself here and say that my favorite cranberry sauce is .... the gel kind that comes in a can. AH!! Yes, it's true, it is old tradition. :) Love it to bits!

And last but DEFINITELY not least!! I love pumpkin pie as much as the next guy, but this year I think I want to try a pumpkin bread pudding. We both adore bread pudding, and it seems like a pumpkin twist would be just natural! I think this one has a little caramel glaze going on, too...



Okay, are we hungry yet?? I know I am!! And the next best part... is leftovers. ;) What are your favorite Thanksgiving foods?? It's almost time!

HOLIDAY CARD SWAP!!!!!! It's TIME!!!!

Hey everyone!! I hope you all had great weeks and that Friday the 13th isn't going to do you wrong. As for me, today is MEGA PACKING day, and also mega moving day. I'm sure tomorrow will be mega achy day. ;) But, the rain has finally subsided and although it's chilly, I can get my stuff to the car without getting soaked!

At any rate, since my laptop STILL does not have a power supply and I don't have access to all my fun photos, Photo Friday will be on hiatus for a bit. But that's okay.. because it's time for ...

HOLIDAY CARDFEST 2009!!!!!
(I will make a great graphic for this, give me a few days!)

Yes, it's that time ladies and gents. Because we KNOW we're busy, because we KNOW Thanksgiving is coming up and once that starts, it's a never-ending whirl of holiday MADNESS until next year, and because we KNOW we're gonna procrastinate! LET'S DO THIS!! :D

It's excruciatingly simple. Send me an email -- nikineu[@]gmail.com -- with your mailing address. I'll reply to you with mine. We send each other awesome holiday cards! FIN!

See, told ya it was easy! ;)

I'd really like people to think about doing something like this on their own blogs, if they feel comfortable. There's so much going on in the world right now, and so many people are caught between a rock and a hard place for whatever reasons. And wouldn't it be great to make someone's day and light up their face with a smile when they get a simple card in the mail? Showing that their blogfriends care to bring that holiday cheer? AWESOME!! Love it. :) It's something simple we can all do to spread what the holidays are REALLY about!

So if you're in it to win it, place this little banner on your blog, and the more people that see what we're up to, the more goodwill and cheer will be spread this holiday season!


And now ... I need to get dressed and PACK! Oh joy of joys! ;) Have a lovely day y'all!!

Mini-hiatus!

Hi everyone!

My laptop decided to blow up! KABOOOOOM! Okay, not really that bad at all, but my AC adapter fizzed and smelled like plastic, and now it won't work, so I need a new one!

I'll be getting one this weekend so until then I'm not going to blog very much. I'm soooo behind on my Google reader too, and I will try and catch up with that tonight, but I want my laptop back! :[ (Yeah, I am on a desktop computer now that I game on, but it's just not the same!)

Hope everyone is having a good week! Mine has been a catastrophe thus far, but that's neither here nor there. ;) Ciao for now!

Giveaway Winner!

So I know this was supposed to be posted yesterday on the 6th.. and here we are on the 7th...!! Ooooops! Yesterday was just SO hectic that it completely slipped my mind; I woke up this morning, and, AAAACK! GIVEAWAY!!!!!

So I went to the randomizer and out of the 16 entries I had, got my random number, then counted down from the first entry...

O.F.C.J from Overwhelming Fullness Like Carbonated Joy, girl you have WON! Drop me a mailing address sometime at nikineu[@]gmail.com and your yumminess will soon be on its way to your tummy. :D

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I hope a great weekend is in store for y'all; I honestly don't know WHAT we'll do... probably nothing!!!! The house closed yesterday so it is OURS, we have the keys and have already been dancing around like ninnies inside! :) We scheduled a moving truck for the 21st so we will be officially moved in then, but until then we'll bring over what we can, when we can. I am SO EXCITED, you have no idea!

That's all for now... I have to go scrounge up some breakfast.

Once Upon a Time Wednesday...

Once upon a time, when I was a very young cat herder (about 5), I did a really silly thing. Not very silly at the time, but years later, pretty silly! I was an inquisitive kid and liked to get into everything, as most young'uns are wont to do. I was in the bathroom one day, poking around and being a general nosy gal, when I discovered... *drumroll goes here* Tampons! Yes, the T word that makes men feel kind of awkward! I had no idea what they were. But they looked fun, and I decided that not only should I unwrap a whole box of them and put them in the toilet, but I should also give it a good flush or five.

Well the T-things created quite the cottony beaver dam in our toilet pipes, much to my parents horror. The plumber actually had to physically remove the toilet from the floor so he could get at the pipes. (Hey, this was 1985, I'm sure toilet snakes weren't so advanced back then.) So where did we put the toilet while it was removed?

On the front lawn.

And what did I delight in doing?

Sitting on it and waving to passing cars.

Never a dull moment! :D

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

There you are, more embarrassing stories from my childhood, and beyond! ;) I had a pretty bummy day yesterday -- the job I applied for and was real hopeful about fell through -- so I've been trying to cheer myself up today! And it's been successful. :) Let's all sit on toilets in our front yards!!

Besides, our house closes in two days (YIIIIKES!!!!) so I can't afford to be bummy!!

And just two more days for that giveaway! :)

Also, a question; how many of you awesome folk (if any!) would be interested in exchanging snail-mail holiday cards this year? I know it's just November, but once Thanksgiving hits time seems to fly by at the speed of light and I wind up at New Years realizing I never sent out any Christmas cards. And it makes me feel like a mega-bum. So let me know if you're interested!! :) I may try to hand-make mine this year, I have some leftover scrapbooking paper and stuff from last year.

A busy week approaches...

Happy November y'all!! :) I hope everyone had a delightfully spooky and fun Halloween - Mr. Cats and I are very into horror films, especially foreign ones (they just seem so much scarier!) and we watcheed a Spanish film called [REC]... they recently remade it to be called 'Quarantine' here in America... oh man, the end of this movie scared me SO MUCH! There are very few horror movies where I have to actually hide my eyes, but this was one of them. Oh man... good stuff! Then Bram Stoker's Dracula was on Chiller (ah, Gary Oldman), so we watched that, and a bunch of awesome short films. :) Good times!

But yeah, this week is going to be BUSY! You may remember me talking a while back about a house we are building... well it's DONE! Our final walkthrough is tomorrow, and the papers will be signed Friday! WOW!!! It's gone from this ...


... to THIS!!!!


We are SO excited to start moving in!!! Right now we are only a few miles away so packing and moving will be easier for us, and we will be completely moved in by Thanksgiving week, as some friends are coming to help. :) :) :) YAY!!!! We started this process way back in May and finally settled on a house plan and a lot, and it took about three straight months to build. It's a little one story ranch with three beds and two baths, a two car garage, lovely hardwood floors and granite countertops and a great screened in porch on our big backyard! So yeah, it's been going on for a while, and Friday it's ours!!!! :D

Friday is also the day I'm choosing a winner for my tasty fall chocolate giveaway, so head on over and check it out if you haven't already! Yum yum yum :)

Also, the job I am hoping to get will hopefully call me in for an interview this week. Fingers crossed, I could use it!

AND, I'm hoping to finish my scarf. I know, kind of trite compared to the other big stuff going on, but it's my very first scarf I've knitted EVER and I've been working on it on and off for about a month now. It's pink! And it will have tassels on the ends. :) I'll show you once I'm done!

And .... I got a new layout for this blog. I really like the colors and columns, I hope it looks good for you guys too!

So that's my big week, hope you guys have a fun and exciting one too! It's about 78 degrees here in North Carolina today so we're heading out to take a walk soon. :)