If you know me you know that....

....one of my favorite food items is a grilled cheese sandwich. I order them about 35% of the time I go out to eat. While reading my monthly lover (aka Real Simple) they had a grilled cheese toaster bag. Obviously I ordered one the next day. Now what this amazing invention does is creates a grilled cheese for you in the toaster (just like the name says...what a concept)! To create this fabulous sandwich you put a slice of cheese between two pieces of bread, put the sandwich in the bag, put the bag in the toaster, and toast! Viola...you have a great grilled cheese. These grilled cheese sandwiches are actually less fattening because you do not use butter to aid in the toasting of the bread. Now, don't get me wrong, its not the best grilled cheese on earth, but its pretty darn good for a lunch at work when I want a toasty sandwich. I ended up buying mine on Ebay for $5 for two bags. You can get up to 50 uses out of each bag and they are dishwasher safe. You can also make french toast (eggs and all), warm up pizza, the options are endless.

What happens when...

...everything you plan falls through??

For Erin's birthday she really wanted to go to a taping of the Cheslea Lately show. We totally lucked out and got tickets for the taping on Friday the 23rd. We had all taken the day off from work (for the most part) and were stoked about going up to LA for the day for some Hollywood glam. On Monday we get an email notifying us that the Friday taping was CANCELLED! Everyone was bummed, particularly Erin.

We decided we were still going to do something that day as we had it on our calendars. Erin loves roller coasters so going up to Knotts Berry Farm for the day seemed like a fun alternative. The weather was not looking good all week long. Friday we decided to deal with the weather and get on the road at about 10am and headed up to Buena Park. We are getting all excited because we can see the rides from the road, pull up to the parking lot, and there is a sign that says "PARK CLOSED"...in the words of Marissa "Defeated Again!!!" I now know exactly how Clarke Griswold felt upon arrival at Wally World.
We headed over to a Chili's to re-group. The first important move was to order 4 big size Coors Lights followed by brainstorming of what we could do.

We told our waitress about our botched birthday themed plans and she brought out the crew to sing happy birthday. We destroyed the yummy cake & ice cream!

We ultimately decided to go to the Irvine Spectrum (rich people mall) and engage in retail therapy. Arianne however had the brilliant idea to make a pit stop first. After a scooby snacks shot at Dave and Busters we had an intense skee ball tournament. We played 4 games and I obviously won with 1240 points...these girls had nothing on me! Carly had the lowest score and her punishment was to buy us another round of shots. Needless to say our shopping experience was enjoyable.

In the end, we had a great time together. Just proves the point its not the what, but the who that matters.

A Cake For Erin

One of my bests birthdays was this week. The hold hag is 28! She is now 2 years older and as she says two years wiser than I. She is annoyingly obsessed with Ohio State so I caved and made her a cake that she would enjoy. It was tough for me to make, but I like the gal so I dealt with it.

I love aprons

I've started my own little collection and I love each one I have. Thanks Mich for the fabulous one she made me for Christmas. I made one the other night for a friends birthday. They've gotten to be pretty easy for me to whip up and I'm enjoying finding fun fabrics to pair together! I even added a little bling to this one.

Chris was 'forced' to model it for me!

A Journey To The Top

On Saturday morning Chris got up early and headed to Heavenly to hit the slopes. I slept in and planned to dilly dally around town and then meet up with him for lunch. I rolled over and looked at the clock and I thought it said 10:55...I jumped out of bed mad at myself for wasting time sleeping when I could be out site seeing. When I looked at the clock a second time it was about 8:15. I had looked at the radio station which is 105.5!

I took the free bus over to heavenly village and decided to go up the gondola to see South Lake Tahoe from the top of the mountain. The resort charged me $30 just to go up! I thought it was absurd, but I didn't want to go all the way there and not get some good photo's so I begrudgingly paid for the lift ticket.

The first stop off the gondola was 3/4 up the mountain and had a observer deck. The views were amazing. Everything was covered in snow and the lake was glistening in the sunlight. I spent about 45 minutes walking around and taking photos.

I then headed to the top of the mountain in hopes I'd cross paths with Chris. By the time I got up there he had already gone over to another side of the mountain to ski.

After my mountain excursion I went for a massage at a great little spa! It was my activity for the weekend. At 1pm we met up for lunch at the bottom of the Gondola. Obviously we had to hit up Fire and Ice as it was right there and we both love the food!

Lake Tahoe

After dinner Chris and I got on the road. The drive was very windy and my ears kept popping. Once we got into Tahoe we checked into our hotel. I went on priceline and put in 4 star resort for $160/night. We really lucked out! We ended up at a timeshare property. Our room had a nice big flat screen TV, little kitchenette, and a really pretty bathroom. Chris was a fan of the random tree log that was placed in the corner of the room.

After we got into our room we decided to take a ride and see what was around. We were about 5 minutes from the Nevada border. We crossed over and turned around and started driving back. We realized there wasn't much else to do, but go to the casino. I wanted to get a new Harrahs players club card as we get discounts for their hotels and I'm hoping to get my girls Vegas trip booked soon. So we went inside and decided to play craps. 4 hours later we left, each winning a little bit!

Tex Wasabi's

I had to go to Sacramento for work Friday and a meeting on Monday. Chris and I decided to visit Tahoe over the weekend as neither of us have been before and we thought it perfect opportunity.

Chris got into Sacramento at about 5:30 and we decided to go to Tex Wasabi's for dinner. We are both fans of Guy Fieri and watch him on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives so thought trying his restaurant would be fun.

I saw the buffalo fries on the menu and couldn't resist. There aren't many vegetarian items on menus that have buffalo wing sauce so I was pretty excited. Chris said they were 'too much', but I enjoyed them thoroughly.

Chris ordered the pork sliders and a Kemosabe Roll that had BBQ beef brisket, french fries, crispy onions & a garlic chili mayo sauce.

I got Morgan's Earthy Crunchy Roll that had crunchy tempura bits, avocado, cucumber, julienne vegetables, daikon sprouts served with a ponzu dipping sauce. It was pretty good. It was nice to have 'gringo' sushi as its called there. Chris said it was 'weird', but he liked it non the less.

Everyone needs a set

For Christmas Mom got us a set of 'hotel collection' sheets. Chris has been bugging me for MONTHS about getting a set of sheets like they had at hotel he basically lived at this summer. I kept telling him it's the high thread count and to just buy a set. Obviously he didnt. I think he saw the price tag and got scared away. When Mom asked for some ideas for him for Christmas I suggested a set of 'hotel collection' sheets. She laughed and said that he wouldn't want those. I explained to her his obsession and she embarked on a quest to find an affordable set. Mom thought it was too weird to give Chris sheets for Christmas so she gave them to both of us. They are super comfy, crisp white, and by far the best sheets we have. I'm not sure our bedroom is even worthy of these sheets. Now I understand why people pay the high prices for these...they are completely worth it!

I think that I'm addicted to...

obsessions..
I get obsessed with things and can not stop thinking about them. I think I am addicted to having obsessions.

Examples:

1. Trinket - It's a darn mini horse that I've never even seen in person!

2. Music - I get a little mini playlist going and play those songs OVER and OVER again all day at work. Each playlist has a shelf life of about 7-10 days then I move onto a new one. Generally speaking the music is completely random and spans across genres. Currently the playlist consists of

• Paper Shoes - Incubus
• Viva la Vida - Coldplay
• Before I Forget - Slipknot
• Kids - MGMT
• Human - The Killers
• Road To Nowhere - Talking Heads
• Hot N Cold - Katy Perry

3. Neat Handwriting - If I write even one letter messy then I just throw the entire paper out and start over. Its maddening.

Now, I know that I am OCD, but the above type things have nothing to do with the OCD, I think they are just quirks. I like to become addicted to quirky behavior I guess.

I'm going to miss...

What am I going to watch on Sunday nights now? True Blood, Entourage, and now Summer Heights High have all ended. From what I understand Summer Heights high has not just ended for the season, but forever. Jonah has gone to live with his Uncle in Tonga and Ja'mie back to her private school. The only ones left are Mr. G and Celine.

Is that a miniature horse?

I recently learned that a co-worker of mine has a miniature horse. I saw a photo of her and became obsessed. Over the next few days the obsession continued to grow and all I could do was talk about her. I had the chance to sit with his wife at our holiday party and chit chat. Naturally one of the topics was Trinket their miniature horse.

Trinket was brought onto their land to be a friend for their full-size horse. I decided that if they ever got another one they would need to name it Morsel (mini+horse=morsel, I know I'm clever). I kept telling Steve that Trinket should live inside the house and he was not having that. So I did the next best thing and made her a scarf!

Here she is modeling my design.

Heck yea i'll go!

That was my response when asked if I wanted to go to see Ms. Britney Spears. How could I pass up an opportunity to see Brit Brit in Las Vegas of all places. I'm totall stoked about it...now I just have to wait until the end of April to go.

Things to do in 2009

I generally am not a fan of new years resolutions, you shouldn't need to wait for a specific date to turn over a new leaf. However today is as good a time as any, so here is a list of things that I want to do in 2009...

1. stop drinking diet coke....the hardest thing in the world for me to give up
2. read more biographies..there are some pretty rad stories of peoples lives
3. switch to Toms of Maine toothpaste...the company is the least harmful to the environment of all tooth paste makers
4. eat at local restaurants & not chains... we've started trying to do this already and we've found some great places
5. go to the farmers market....buy local its better for everyone