Ok I will post already

Monday was the 2nd anniversary of the day Brad proposed. We went to a restaraunt called Pecorino and the food was great. We ate so much that night and had a great time. Pecorino is a type of cheese and quite frankly my husband is obsessed with it. The funny thing about that is that when I met Brad he hated cheese and only tolerated it on his pizza but he preferd more sauce and less cheese. Now this man is ordering a cheese plate and savoring it even more than I am. It is funny how things change. Brad and I are really happy and things are going well.

I have been keeping busy and don't have a lot that I can talk about on an open forum like this right now. Our home owners association is crazy right now and I am trying to get to an even keel on things. We are also doing some home improvements that we have been meaning to do for awhile now. In a few weeks Brad's sister and boyfriend are coming to stay with us for a week and I am trying to get Brad's office turned into a bedroom for them to stay in that will also be cat free since they have cat allergies. Getting my girls locked out of a room though is not as easy as it sounds because Z can open doors.

It is raining here today which is nice to have some wintery weather. Rain is the closest we get to winter here. Although it has been cold enough to actually need the heater we paid to have fixed last year, so I glad we finally have working heat. It was cold enough here this morning that Brad actually wore pants to work instead of his usual shorts. Well that is all I have to say now so I will post more when I have more to say.

Happy cHannukah

SO things have been a little crazy around here lately. Recently I ended up becoming a member of the board for my homeowners association. While I thought that I would simply be joining the board and helping out for a year it didn't really turn out that way, and now I am the president of the board. It seems as though the old board made some poor decisions and now there is a mess to clean up. So I have been running around like mad trying to get locks out to residents to be rekeyed and then get them back and have them installed in the gates. Then while dealing with that we had to solve a problem with the gates in my house that have a ten inch gap between the ground and the gate. So now they are remaking my gate and then they can install the locks. Dealing with the other homeowners and the board are less than fun.

On Sunday morning at 5:30 I woke up rather suddenly to the sound of a cat yacking. I sat bold upright and started screaming "No no no no get off the bed, GET OFF THE BED!" Brad than jumped and said "What did I do?" The cat leaped to the floor and puked all over the carpet. We thought that was it and that I had saved the bed but in mornings light we saw we had been to late. We pulled off the duvet cover and saw that it had seaped through. So with a little resolve dual action cleaner we again had a pure white duvet. I put our other cover on and was thankful we had 2 covers that we got as wedding presents. We kept an eye on Pixel and she continued to puke all over the house. I thought maybe she had a hairball and so I gave her some hairball medicine. Well a few minutes later she was again throwing up. So I began trying to box her up so we could go to the vet. Round one went to Pixel, round two also to Pixel. It was looking pretty grim and I was unsure I was up to the task. So with no regard to the safety of my precious boobies I cornered her and picked her up and forced her into the box. After swiftly closing the door I surveyed the damage, well my chest was pretty scratched up and there were random scratches all across my body. I got Pixel to the vet and after an exam and x-rays they found nothing wrong with her and told me to give her Pepcid. I spend the day and two hundred and fifty bucks to be told to give her a 5 dollar over the counter human drug. What the hell is the point of that. Well today she hasn't puked all day and so we may not have to take her back to the vet.

Brad gave me XM radio for cHannukah. I installed it into my car myself and I was very proud of the job I did. I can be quite handy when I want to be. I have really loved having the satalite radio in my car and at home. I have listened to music and read on the couch which is a nice way to spend time. Also XM has made a cHannukah station so that Jews have a place to hear their music. I hope they will think about keeping a Jewish station as it would be nice to have a place that place our worship music. It is funny their are somthing like 6 Christian channels all year and only one Jewish station and only for the 8 days of cHannukah. Anyway I hope that all of you no matter what you believe in have a good holidays and spend some time with those you love. It is this time a year that I am reminded how lucky I am to have the great family I do and that I still can spend time with them. We will be heading to Napa on Saturday to visit my family so I will probably not be around much next week.

I am going to try to spend some time tomorrow updating all my links so if you are moving let me know so I can finally have the right links for everyone.

Wild Animal Park

 
 
 
So here are a few pictures from my families trip to the wild animal park. You will see the first picture is of my Mom being so brave to be in the presence of kissing Giraffes. I will give her a hard time for this picture but they are amazing and intimatidating animals. It was so amazing to be so close to the animals. It was also fun to see little C's reaction to the animals. Early in the day before we were on the tour she said she wasn't going to touch them. When it came time to feed the giraffes and the Rhinos you couldn't keep her away. We all had such a fun day and it was nice to spend time with the family. After the park we spent all week together shopping cooking and eating. A full tummy was had by all.

So this is one of those posts where I have so much to say I will accomplish none of it. I guess the important thing is I am alive and doing well. I am catering tomorrow night for Brad's work so I will let you know if I make it through alive. Have a great night everyone. 

I think I have a problem

What does it say about you when most of your hits from google searches involve the word chocolate in some way? Do I need a chocolate intervention. Do you want to know my other most popular hit is "in the doctors stirrups." Seriously have I not typed anything more worthy of people reading? I am beginning to worry about how interesting I seem if this is how people find me. I am also learning that there are a lot of people out there that want chocolate Oscar statues, I am wondering if I should make a mold and start selling those as I get googled daily for it. I guess this is as good of a time as any to say why this blog was called chocolate cars in the first place. When I started this blog I was making chocolate MINI Coopers and selling them to the MINI club we belonged too. They were pretty detailed and took a lot of work. Since it was the only really unique thing I could think of about myself at the moment I named the blog Chocolate Cars. Perhaps not the greatest story in the world but at least now you can stop wondering about it. Apparently all the pictures of the cars are on Brad's computer though so I don't have one to post.

My almost niece's birthday party was very cute and we had a great time. I am trying for almost aunt of the year so I made her birthday cake. One of the Mom's was raving how light and fluffy the icing was on the cake, she said it was like professional icing. I thanked her for the compliment and then explained that I am a chef. She said oh so it is professional. I guess I never really thought of myself that way. Anyway the icing wasn't really difficult or brilliant it was just whipped ganache, something I have been making since before culinary school. Actually it was sort of an accident when I couldn't get it to thicken up to cover a cake and I didn't understand the properties of ganache. I figured it had whipping cream in it I would whip it and see what happens. What happens is you get a really fluffy chocolate mousse like substance that sets stiff. So I don't come off as a total snob I will explain that ganache is half cream half chocolate by weight. You heat the cream to just under boiling and then take it of the heat and pour it over the chocolate. Let sit for a minute and then stir with a whisk until all the chocolate melts. It will start off really liquidy and when it cools it will firm up. You have eaten it in the center of a chocolate truffle before.

Ok now go ahead and google chocolate and see how quickly you find me.

I am Getting Stupider

So I was reading through old posts and comments I have made on other blogs and I have realized that I am not as smart as I once was. You see I used to have a pretty good command of grammer and was careful to avoid common mistakes. Now I obviously don't know the difference between their, there, and they're. I no longer know when to use to and when to use too. I usually get two correct though. I am pretty sure that I still know that a lot is two words and use it properly but overall I think I am getting dumber. I can't tell you how many times I wish to say a different word than I use but have no clue how to spell it so I dumb down my vocabulary. I am getting a little worried though because if I am becoming this dumb now by the time I am 45 I am going to be in diapers and drooling mumbling about the good old days. I fear senility is not that far away.

So I don't have that much exciting to talk about right now. We are going to my almost neice's birthday party this weekend. She is turning 8 and having a party at Build-a-bear. She is the cutest kid in the world so I sure it will be fun to see her. My parents are coming here for Thanksgiving and we are going to go to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and do the photo safari tour. It is so cool we get to go into the enclosure and hand feed the giraffes and rhinos. The whole family is going so I am hoping we will get some good family pictures. Of course I shall also try to post a picture of me and a rhino because being next to such an animal is sure to make me feel thinner.

I did call and make a formal complaint to the insurance company about the Doctor. I don't think anything will come of it but at least it will go on record. I also asked if it was uncommon to have to go in for test results and the insurance lady said no that it is a matter of policy and some office prefer to always be face to face for results. I guess that means that when you are going to a new Doctor you should ask what their policy is before you go for the appointment. Actually I am learning that in general when you call a new Doctors office it is good to ask a lot of questions about the Doctor and office before you even go because they may not be suited to you.

Ok so Britmum tagged me to come up with eight things about myself that you all may not know about me. Normally I would link her but I am too lazy for that now. I am trying to think of eight things so I hope my list doesn't disappoint you all.

1. I used to purposely miss spell words when we had class spelling bees so I could sit down and doodle because I didn't like standing up still for long periods of times.

2. I almost drowned when I was 4 and for a long time I was afraid to go back in the water. My Mom bribed me to swim and after that she could never get me out of the pool. I became a total fish.

3. I hate being the only one to ever call and make an effort with people. I will do it for awhile but if the other person never calls me I stop calling them and we drift apart. The only people that stay for long in my life are people that I have a two way street with.

4. Most people that know me think I have a lot of confidense. I always feel like a phony. I am starting to learn that really no one is confident just some people are better at faking it. So maybe there really isn't any such thing as confidense.

5. I have an incredible memory for things. I can pretty much tell you the minute details of a date or party. I can also quote lines from movies better than most men. I drive Brad and Susan crazy because I don't forget anything.

6. When I was young I would let my brothers talk me into to things. One time Nick tied me to the back of his bike while I had rollerskates on. I was wearing really short Dove shorts. Nick started to pull me and right as he got up speed he slammed on the brakes. I got tire burn all up my thighs and it smelled terrible and was really painful. He to this day says it was my fault, that I should have swerved.

7. I sometimes think that I am one of the only people in the world that came from a functional family. I am so lucky to have the parents I do. Without them I don't think our family would have made it through some of the things we did.

8. I am always afraid when something I have always wanted is about to happen that it will some how not. I worried that I would be told seconds before my High School graduation that it was a mistake and I wouldn't graduate. I never feel like I quite deserve these big events.

I don't know who to tag with this so if you haven't done this and want too consider yourself tagged.

Betty Homemaker

 

So I don't know how many of you are aware of what a gifted homemaker I really am so I post this picture as proof. First you have Brad drinking a cup of hot coco made with the Tassimo beverage system which is about the best thing ever. Behind him you will see the kitchen curtains. I made those. I never even took home ec. The cabinets in the kitchen you will see are a lovely shade of blue. I sanded all the old stain of them and painted them. They still look great after 4 1/2 years. Now is time to prove I am not Betty homemaker. See the plants in the window sill. They looked great now they are dead. I can't keep house plants alive. ANyway I have no real reason for posting this picture other than I thought you all could use a glimpse at my kitchen.

So today I went back to the doctor to get the results back from my pap and blood work. I have never had to actually go into the Docotrs office for that before so I thought that was a little weird. I than had to sit in the lobby for an hour before they took me to an exam room. Then I waited another 30 minutes for the Doctor. Finally the Dr. came to the exam room and had me meet her in her office. She then tells me that all my tests are normal and that she will see me in six months. For this they charged me another copay. To say that I was annoyed would be an understatement. Why in the hell did I need to come in for that and where do they get off charging you to give you the results of your exams. Plus you have to pay for parking. I find it odd though that this would be her practices. I am 33 and have been getting paps since I was 17 every year I have never before had to go to the office for results nor pay another copay to be told I am fine. Besides this I saw that the nurse had all my results when she took my blood pressure when I first got there. WHy could she not say I was fine. Knowing that she had the results but wouldn't tell me scared me and I thought there was something wrong. So waiting an additional hour was awful. I am sorry but if you are going to charge me to give me the results you could at least see me in a timely manner. I do not appreciate waiting an hour and a half after my appointment time to be told I am normal. Need;ess to say I will not be back to this doctor. Brad says I should wage a complaint with our insurance so they will no longer reccomend this Dr. I am not sure it will do any good. WHat do you think. Is it normal to have to have a second paid office visit for results and I have just lucked out all along? 

Some bugs up my butt.

So last night was Halloween and Brad and I really look forward to having trick or treaters come to our house. It is fun to see all the kids in costume and to hear how excited they are for the night. We never get very many kids though because we live on such a busy street and we are in a town house that the people would rather go on safer streets with real houses. I understand that but I think parents under estimate how much candy your kids would get from a complex like ours. We are so happy to get a treater that we give them a hand full of candy and so does our neighbor. So saying this and knowing as much as we love having the kids come how late should kids be out trick or treating. Let us consider that last night was a school night, and that at 9 House returned to tv. Why in the world were we getting knocks on our door until 10pm. I am sorry your kid is awfully cute but a 5 year old needs sleep and should not be interrupting the last few minutes of good tv we get a week. I thought it was awfully rude to come to someone's door begging that late at night.

Another thing that is really annoying me right now is all the election stuff. First I have to say in my 33 years on thins earth I have never heard stupider campaign ideas. Here in California one add against Arnold was solely that he at one point said vote for Bush. While I don't care for Bush or his way of running our country I think that there are far better things to critique Arnold on than him supporting Bush. The ad if anything made me feel that the candidate that aired it was unintelligent and not a good leader. Another candidate here has ads that say " I was really fat, I promised my family I would lose weight. I kept my promise, that is why I would make a good insurance commissioner." Are you kidding me. Are you really saying your ability to be a good leader is based on how well Jenny Craig has worked for you. Please my Dad has lost a ton of weight lately that doesn't mean I think he would be a good politician. Well actually I think that my Dad would be a better politician than this idiot but mostly because he would never say that his ability to lose weight would make him a good leader.

My last complaint is people in stores. When you are shopping in a store remember that others are too. Do not park your cart in the middle of an aisle blocking the way for others. Please get to one side or the other. If you are on the side and you are debating about whether this one or this one is better, please notice that there are other people who know which one is better for them and let them get to it and get on with their day. Do not get into an argument with your sig other in the store and block the section while you yell about pinto beans or black beans. I don't care I just want to buy rice, move. If you have unloaded all your groceries onto the counter and you are waiting to be checked out have the courtesy to put a little stuff separator down. I can't reach it from the end and you can, so help me out a little here. Lastly when you are done with your shopping chart please put it in a chart area not wedged behind my bumper scratching the paint on my car. My car may not look like much to you but it is mine and I would like not to have more scratches in it.

Insert witty title here

SO I was sitting at my computer this afternoon with the garage door open and I heard someone at the dumpster. I looked over to see who it was, so I could quickly close the door if it was an annoying neighbor, and I saw him. The Grim Reaper was taking out the trash. So I began to wonder what kind of trash does the grim reaper accumulate? I am hoping it was an early Halloween thing but really who takes out the trash in full costume? In other news we are finally getting our new fences and I am very happy about it. It will be nice to have a 6 food fence surrounding my patio and front door instead of the old 3 foot fence. We live on the busiest street in Los ANgeles so it will be nice to have a bigger fence and more sound proofing. The new fence is also this weird plastic material so it won't have termites like the old redwood fences did. They were in bad shape.

I seemed to have found my bladder so you all can call off the search party. It seems that the coffee and soup diet didn't agree with my bladder so I had some solids today and that seemed to help soak up some of the liquid. Thank you all for your suggestions of me being pregnant I am sure my Mother is holding her breath now and wishing it true. My parents are very excited about the prospect of having Grand children and if they had their way I would have gone off the pill on my wedding day. Speaking of the pill can I just say that I love Seasonale. Having a period every 3 months is wonderful, I recommend it to anyone on the pill. It was really nice while planning the wedding and honeymoon that I knew I didn't have to pack Tampons. Although I didn't think about using them to hide stuff in my purse like Bossy does.

So we used to have Comcast Cable and it was annoying and would have some outages and we thought it was really bad. Then Time Warner bought Comcast and our cruddy service went from cruddy to shitty. We lose internet connection everyday at least once if not three or four times a day. They had our whole cable down from Friday night to Sunday night and their customer service was of no help. In short they are awful and we are trying to see now if we have a better option than them. I am saying now though for the record Time Warner Sucks! So when my whole internet isn't out I try to visit you guys and to post here only to have blogger being out. So annoying. So if I have left you no love lately you will know why. Everything sucks.

When oh when is the world series going to be over? I miss House and new runs of shows. I hate October baseball. Give me back my good shows! Anyway I have a klondike bar with my name on it and I am going to go eat it.

Lost...

At some point last night I lost something that is very important to me. I have looked everywhere but I can not find it. I am not sure how I will live a normal life if it is not found so I shall keep searching. I am thinking of putting up missing poster across the town to see if maybe someone has found it and picked it up. I don't know what to do but not having this has gotten really annoying. Before last night I would hold it for long stretches of time and it never let me down, but now I am afraid it is gone. You see I have lost my dear bladder and today every 15 minutes I have had to run to the bathroom to potty. What is up with that? So if you see my bladder out there can you please send it back to me? You can just send it to the nearest bathroom cause I will be there.

So I had a genius plan this week that this week would be soup week and every night I would make a different soup. Monday was cream of asparagus soup. Tuesday was Butternut Squash with Caramelized Apples. Tonight was Artichoke Heart soup. Tomorrow will be French onion soup. Friday we will probably have some of the left overs. Anyway I have made huge pots of soup everynight and I have packaged up the extras and froze them so we can have them later on when I don't feel like cooking. Brad was actually really happy to have a theme week and has been excited to try each new soup. He also gets to take fresh made soup with him to work the next day and I think he likes that too. So last night when he came home he said this whole having a theme for a week is working out really well you should do that all the time. I guess he doesn't realize how much work it is to do that. Plus I think it would get old. If you ate in the same genre all week I think you would get tired of it. I just like the idea of going into fall with lots of soups already to go in the freezer.

Well I have to go my 15 minutes are up and I must return to the bathroom. I also need to get upstairs and take my beef stock off the stove and strain it and chill it for tomorrows soup. I was happily surprised to learn that I could get soup bones from the grocery store butcher. They were $1.39 a pound and I have made like 5 gallons of stock so I think it was worth it for the price. I will let you know tomorrow when we have the soup though.

I am here, sort of.

I have been trying to visit everyones blog and to keep up with them, but I have felt uninspired to write anything here. I suppose I could tell you about lots of stuff but I really don't feel like saying much. Maybe it is that I have too much to say that I don't know where to begin so it is easier to say nothing. In anycase I haven't written for two weeks and I guess I should say something. Brad's car had a bad two weeks and it now has a brand new clutch, power steering, toggle switches, passenger door lock, oh no handle in the back, and something else I can't remember. So for the last two weeks I have been doing all the driving. We finally got his car back on Saturday and we hope it will be awhile before it has to go to the doctor again. I however am having my annual Dr. violation on Friday. I know the annual visit is neccessary but man does it suck to have to disrobe and put your feet in stirrups. I mean usually if some on is going to touch all my buts and pieces I at least get a dinner out of it, but with the doctor I have to pay for the torture.

SO this brings me to my question. I will only see a female gyno, do the rest of you have a preference if the doctor is male or female? I am not sure why I won't go to a man but the fact is I won't so we will leave it at that. Next after a pap I feel gross and slimy for the rest of the day, similar to being on my period, does that happen to anyone else? Then there is the question of underwear. I always wear my best undies when I go for a pap, but the Dr. has you disrobe before they ever come into the room, so why do I feel it necc. to have the best undies on? Anyway I could go on and on about my irrational Dr. quirks but instead I will ask what weird things do you worry about or do prior to your visit?

The movie Brad was just working on comes out in theatres on Friday and we are excited about it, Flags of Our Fathers. We got to see a crew screening last wednesday and the movie is really good. I will say that if you don't like war movies there are parts that are pretty graphic, but the story is very good and the effects don't look effecty. It was really nice to see a movie that all the guys were proud to work on for a change, because often films with a lot of effects are more about the effects than telling a story. We saw the movie at the academy award theatre, which is where they screen films to be nominated. the picture quality there is better than at any other theatre and the movie looked great. I have never been there before because it isn't exactly a place the public can go to the movies in. On either side of the screen are giant Oscar statues. It was strange watching a movie looking at the statues when you are pretty sure the film will be nominated for an oscar. I wanted to take pictures to show you guys but we weren't allowed to bring cameras in. Security was really strict there so I din't try either.

So that is all for now. I may post pictures later from Disneyland Halloween yesterday. I also took a video of the haunted mansion. If I can load it into you tube I will post it.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh MY

 
 
 

So we had a great time at the zoo. The Tigers and Monkeys stoled the day because they were so animated. The Tigers were running around chasing each other playing tag just like a giant version of our cats. I know nat there rough housing would definately keep us up because our little 10 pound tornatos make a lot of noice on the stairs. The monkey were great too. We got there right as the trainer was throwing out apples and other vegetation and they were a lot of fun to watch srambling for all they could carry. I will post pictures up on my picasa link later today if anyone wants to check it out. I am not sure what time today I will post that so don't knock yourselfs getting there until later tonight. Currently it is not yet 8 am and I have been up since 4am. The hubs couldn't sleep so he kept me up too. I am now wide awake and he has fallen back asleep upstairs. Man does he owe me. So I am going to keep this post short and go to the living room couch to see if I can catch even a few zzzs before it is too late. 

Come Here Pretty Lady

 


A preview of the view for all of you. We had a great day. More details and pictures to come later. 

Yet another stop motion sunset

So the sunsets around here have been pretty incredible and I can't resist taking a little stop motion video. I had wondered what the use of this feature was until we started going out to take pictures of our awesome sunsets. Now you all can watch it with me. Brad slowed it down for me so it is a little easier to watch than the last one.

I had yet another interview today. It went fine but I am feeling better about the whole process now anyway. After all this though, my client that I haven't heard from since the wedding called to book me for Tuesday. I guess I had to give up on the business for anything to happen. I still plan to get a real job but it is nice to know that there is some work out there if I want it.

I don't talk much about my faith on here but it is something that is very important to me and to Brad. Tonight we had the most incredible Shabbat service ever. I had tears in my eyes at the power of God's work. This was a new trial service and we all sat in a round and sang and worshipped together. I don't remember the last time I felt God's presence more clearly. Sunday we have Yom Kippur services and all day Monday. This is a very long day as we do not eat, drink, shower, brush our teeth or anything else that seperates us from animals. It sounds hard but it is a small price to pay for forgiveness and a clean slate.

I had something else I wanted to say but I have forgotten what that was. This can mean only one thing, it was terribly important. Oh one thing is that we are going to go to the zoo tomorrow so come back for lots of pictures of the experience. I love the zoo so much so I am so excited to get to go tomorrow. I am in trouble when we have kids cause I will be more excited about these kinds of things than they will.

Rejection

Hopefully above is a stop motion movie I took of a recent sunset. If it isn't there what can I say oh well something else I suck at.

So part of why I have been absent from here is that I have been focusing my energy on finding a job. This is by no means an easy prospect for me. First it is admitting that I am not capable of making a go at my own business. This in and of itself was a hard blow to my ego. Then there is the whole process of scouring the job boards sending out resumes and going to interviews. I hate this more than I can ever describe. Some of you may have the mistaken impression that I am a confident person, this is not true. I fill out each application knowing that in every aspect of me that there is someone that can do it better. So I go and I fake being the confident person. I try to believe that I am the best for the job and that really I am the best qualified. Some times I pull it off and I see myself as good enough for the position. I feel like if I fooled me I should have fooled them too. I leave the interview and wait for the call to see if I am chosen. The phone never rings. I suck up all my courage secretly knowing if I have to call them I didn't get the job, but I call none the less, still trying not to get my hopes up. They answer and tell me "We decided to go with another candidate." I choke back tears and say quickly before they get the best of me thank you, and hang up. The rest of the day I will now spend analyzing everything. What was the reason, was I too fat, too stupid, too underqualified, too over qualified. Was I just not likeable, did I have something on my teeth? Did I try to hard, or not hard enough? All in all the questions come and the only real answer is that there is always someone better than me. So then this new question arises, how many better people are trying for the same jobs as I am before I am found good enough. Why does this whole process reduce me to the kid on the playground being the last picked for dodgeball? How do I continue this process when I feel more beaten by the day?

Beyond all this though there are the people that you tell you scored an interview that are rooting for you. Now that you once again were found wanting how do you face them and tell them you failed? I feel like crap and really talking about this is about the last thing I want to do, yet there are so many people that know, so I must put it out there.

So I have stayed away from here because quite frankly I feel like crap about myself and the knowledge that even here I am not good enough, smart enough, or clever enough to receive much feedback is more than my ego could handle. But right now I am feeling pretty low because truth be told this was the job I wanted and I know I was qualified for it. I know I would have been good at it. I know I wanted it more and that the person that got it only wanted a job and not this job. So my first thought was that I hope this person sucks at the job and that every day the manager kicks herself for choosing poorly. I know that is not the right way to feel but I can't help it. I need the encouragement of my little blog family, and I will try to forget how much better at this some of you are than me.

I do have other jobs that I have interview with or applied for that are still in the works and so in a couple of days this can all resolve and I will feel stupid for feeling so raw about it. But if any of you out there are hiring people please remember what it feels like to be the person applying. We would love feedback without chasing you down. We are vulnerable. We are taking some serious hits to our egos so be gentle with us. Don't ask for a lot of information form them if you don't plan to hire them. If you know in the interview you won't be hiring them let them know then so they aren't waiting for you.

Pictures

I haven't really felt much like blogging so I took a little break. I am still a bit frustrated with blogger and I am hoping that they work out some of their glitches and the whole weirdness with the beta blogs. I don't know how to explain why I needed to get away from here for awhile other than I felt like I was reading or writing about life more than I was living it and I needed to balance some. So while I was gone I have taken lots of pictures, baked brownies, invented a new burger, shampooed the carpet, played video games, played board games, seen my brothers new car, and watched tv. I could probably go in to a lot more detail on any one of those things but I really don't feel like it so I will leave it at that. I have tried to go by everyones blogs but I wasn't able to comment on everyone because blogger wasn't playing nice today. So if you are on my roll call and didn't get a note consider yourself hugged.
 

Scary Day

So I was in my house tooling around this afternoon, when I started hearing a lot of sirens. Sirens in my neighborhood aren't that uncommon as we live across the street from a nursing home. But the Sirens kept coming and I could hear a lot of people outside. I looked out the back and to my shock this is what I saw. The building diagonal from me was on fire and we had lots of fireman to fight it. I should say from the beginning that no one was hurt and the owners of this unit got out ok. I live in Culver City which has it's own fire department, this is a very good thing. Within 2 minutes of the fire department being called they were already here fighting the fire. They got the fire out and kept it from spreading to any other unit or even any more of their unit then the bedroom it started in. It was amazing to see these men stand on the roof and saw any and the burning wood. They were so quick and we had more then 7 fire trucks here. It was really a site to behold. I chose not to take any more pictures of the incedent because I felt wrong in taking pictures, so I didn't take any until the fire was out. Now the question remains what is the best thing to do for these people now that the fire is over nad they can't go back home. Another neighbor has offered them a place to stay so I am planning to go over tomorrow and offer to make meals for them until they are back on their feet. Does this seem like the right thing to do. Tomorrow we will also be going through the house and making sure all the wires are safe and that there is no dust bunnies near outlets. I also plan to talk to our home owners association about an emergency plan and a way of helping people out after a crisis. So I would like to encourage everyone to go check your house and make sure you don't have fire hazards around. Also make a plan for emergencies you never know when there will be one.
 

Site Meter

Ok so I put in a site meter because I was curious who was reading me and how they found me. I have had it for awhile now and most of the times people google their way here it makes sense and I don't question it. There seems to be a lot of people who google chocolate cars and from that they find me no problem. Today though I was a little taken back when I found this was someone googled me. "why won't you have dirty hot sex with me?" Furthermore I was the only hit. Ok when looking back I can see how this happened. First of all because of the quotes it set me apart. Second of all it is a lyric from a song that I posted about over a year ago. It was a funny story about my boss, a very prudish christian and she kept walking in when this song came on the radio and then she would promptly leave. But I can't help but wonder if the person that was search for that was disappointed when they read my otherwise pretty tame blog. I mean I suppose with a phrase like that you would have certain expectations, that I certainly can't live up too.

So why is it that every time I go to some ones blog that has word verification I get the worlds longest most illegible word and once I type it in correctly using the power of the force the next word that appears that I am not getting is like 4 letters long and in large easy to read font? I mean I already hate those stupid things to begin with why to I have to get the impossible words? Anyway that is my vent for today.

Last night we had a very nice dinner with friends for Brad's birthday. The food all turned out well and everyone seemed to have a good time. It is nice being able to make dinner at home and have people over. It is also nice to not have to drive anywhere after. We had lots of wine. Now we have lots of leftovers. Anyway I hope you all have a great weekend. See you all later.

Happy Birthday

Warning if you should see this man out and about today you are required by law to shout Happy Birthday to him. He has turned 27 today and he gets more handsome every day. So feel free to stop by his blog and leave him a birthday comment. Comments make his day. 

Pictures

So for those of you even remotely interested in viewing some of the pictures I have taken lately you can now view them whenever you wish here

In other news we have had a very good three day weekend. On Saturday we went on our photo safari and if you read the post from then you already know that. Yesterday we went on a bike ride with our Rabbi and we talked with him and had a nice time. We came home and rested a bit and then went to dinner with Jens and Megan and went to see Beerfest. Dinner was nice and Beerfest was just as stupid as it looked. Today we sat around the house until 12:30 and then had lunch with Gordon. Apparently today the police were everywhere so we drove very carefully. After lunch we came home and hung out for a while and then went to see Invincible. The movie was very likeable and it is a nice feel good story. The movie itself was enjoyable but for some reason we were in the gross out noises section. Through the whole movie people were loudly snorting their snot, blowing their noses, burping, farting, and any other foul noise their bodies would make. The sad thing is it was from different groups of people and the noises were real not for effect. So I need you all to keep good thoughts that I didn't catch the plague at the movie theatre. After the movie we went to dinner and Gordon met us. We were seated and we got drinks, a long while after we order drinks they arrived. We ordered food and sat and talked. 30 minutes later our food was still not on the table and no one had been by to refill our drinks. Then our food came from a runner and still no sign of our server and no refills. I got up and grabbed the glasses and went over to the bar. When our server saw me at the bar with the glasses he came running to serve me. I told him we had waited forever and he never came by. I sat back down and began to eat my salad. I had a bite of it when I saw it was covered in tomatoes. I hate raw tomatoes and order them to be left off. So sent the salad back. When it finally returned to the table the boys had already finished eating. I looked at my salad not very hungry by that point and saw that in addition to the cubes of almost raw tri tip on the salad I was also given all the fat chunks and Grissle. Yeah disgusting. So at this point we get the manager over and so her the nasty food I had just been served. Her response, I will have them make you a new one. Yeah at this point I don't think so. I have lost my appetite and patience. I removed all the disgusting chunks and took the rest to go. Of course my meal was free. The funny thing is we are friends with the corporate chef, so Brad took pictures of my food and emailed them to corporate. I hope they step up cause that was terrible. Brad was making fun of me after the fact because this always happens to me. I probably have a terrible meal 1 out of 5 meals out. When I say terrible I mean like this too not mild mistakes. I swear I am not overly bitchy or picky I just have a knack for getting bad service.

Hollywood Sign, The Grove and Sunset

Today Brad and I went on a photo safari. What that means is we leave the house with all our camera gear and see where the day takes us. So todays pictures are all pretty local. The first is at Third and Fairfax on the roof of the parking garage. This is where the famous Los Angeles Farmers Market is. Today was such a beautiful day you could clearly see the Hollywood sign. Often here it is too muggy to see the sign. The second picture is of the fountain at the Grove part of Third and Fairfax, a very trending shopping center. The last picture is of the sunset taken in the baseball park down the street from our house. It seems to be a popular spot to watch the sunset as a lot of people drove up with cameras to do the same thing. Later I may post some of the night shots I got. I love night photography it is my new obsession.