Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving, we celebrated it with my cousin Danielle, and my second cousin, Bassie in PA.  The feast was delicious and the visit was enjoyable; we may or may not have had three pies for dessert (no we did not eat them all in one sitting, thank you very much!) among the 3 of us.

 Mostly the doings of Danielle

Nice Bird!

Bassie.  (Sorry I didn't get a better pic of you!)

Besides the turkey feast, we also went to Hershey's Chocolate World (one of the 'sweet' (har har) perks of Danielle working for Hershey's!).  For the tour portion of the experience, think Disneyland ride, kinda like "It's a small world" but MUCH better and more interesting.

View of Hershey Park from the "Kiss Tower"

Mmm chocolate syrup!

Danielle also let us join her in chopping down a tree!  Turns out we are kind of bad at it, luckily the tree guys fixed the gnarly base. 

Working hard, or hardly working?

Danielle may also be the best hostess, because not only did she let us feed her dog way too many "Beggin' Strips," but she also gave the best Welcome gift.

Screw you, Monday.

Today was one of those days where your car decides to not to start while being at a gas station, then having to walk home for 30 min. Then, making arrangements for it to be towed (covered 100% by insurance, YAY!) and....the tow truck man is able to start it, no problem at all.

Sigh.

Good and bad thing, right?  Well, we drove it right to the mechanic anyway.

I'm starting to believe that Maryland is a bad omen.  This whole getting our cars ready to be registered is becoming more and more of a mess!  It's pretty stressful, and I'm tired of it.

But today when I was up-to-my-eye-balls-stressed-out and feeling sorry for myself, I decided to think of ways "it could be worse" while listening to Christmas music, and it helped me to calm down and be a little more humbled.

The real reason I wanted to blog right now, was to share a recipe of what we had tonight for dinner: Vegetarian chili and (Trader Joe's) Corn Bread! It was sooo good.  You can find the chili recipe here. TJ's corn bread is a box mix. The chili didn't turn out as spicy as it did last time I made it, which I was happy/sad about.  It's so easy!  Do it.

Cheers to no mo' crappiness this week. Well, post-mechanic bill of course. (insert silent sob)

My sister told me about this, so I went out and bought it a week or two ago. It is deeeelicious! Go buy some at Trader Joe's, and thank me later. It's seasonal too, so stock up if you like it!

For your viewing pleasure.

Yesterday was one of those days where one thing leads to another, and before you know it, you're watching youtube videos. Of killer whales. 

Oh, that doesn't happen to you? Weird.

I avoided the terrifying ones, I only want to think of them as cute, cuddly, and friendly.

Here's my favorite one that I came across




Your Welcome.

Hostess

As I'm sure you all have heard, Hostess the company went bye-bye.  American's everywhere were weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, and not to mention frantically raiding store for the last few Twinkies.

Honestly, I never was a big fan of their products- I never liked Twinkies (gasp! Am I American?!) (google spell check tells me to capitalize Twinkies. What the?) And if I ate one of the cupcakes, I would eat around the filling. 

One person I thought about when I first heard of this, was my grandpa. Towards the beginning of the year, we celebrated with my dear Grandpa on his 90th birthday.  Anyway, many many years ago, he worked for Hostess, I believe as a distributor (is that right family? Don't be mad if I'm not right on specifics...I'm still the favorite, a close second after Annie, obviously).  My mom still has one of his Hostess t-shirts, which I loved as an awkward teenager.

Then I realized today, Grandpa out-lived Hostess!  Way to go, Grandpa!  That's quite the accomplishment.

I'm trying to convince my mom to have him put on his old Hostess t-shirt sometime over Thanksgiving- I'll be sure to post a picture if this happens.

Being selfish

Since moving to Maryland, I am still actively looking for a job.  It's been a roller coaster, but I'm trying to be hopeful that something will come up soon.

But I've noticed something kinda weird, and honestly, annoying.  The two of the three times I've been in contact with someone at Marriott, via interview or phone call screening, they seem to be way too interested in what Wolfgang's career.  Um..what the heck?!  Somehow he comes up in the interview, and the questions start coming,
"What does he do/what is his job title?"
"Interesting, now tell me EVERY DETAILS OF HIS DAILY RESPONSIBILITIES" (Ok, maybe I tweaked that one, just a little.)
"Where does he work?"
"Oh, I didn't know they did that at Headquarters"
"Who does he work for?"
"What hotels is he over?"
etc.

The first time it happened, I obviously wasn't giving satisfying answers cause the questions just kept coming. Unfortunately that was very soon after we had moved here, and quite frankly I was still figuring out exactly what my husband was doing for work.  In my head I was thinking, "Isn't this interview about me?" I was slightly annoyed and later just laughed it off when I told Wolfgang about it.

Well, today it happened again. I called someone today pertaining to a potential job that I may be interviewing for in the near future, and somehow my husband came up.  Some of the questions mentioned came up, and I just played along and answered as best I could. 

I know we are taught not to be selfish, but What the heck?!  I really don't get it. Can someone explain?  The stubborn woman in me is really put off by this, but, what do you do? I need a job and can't be picky.  Maybe it's just a weird man thing.  In the meantime I'm just going to get over it, and heaven forbid it happens again, I might not play nice again.

Handy Woman

Yesterday I took our Corolla in to get a safety inspection in preparation to get our cars registered in state (booo!!).  Unfortunately it failed, but I kinda assumed it would. Luckily to get it reinspected, I don't have to pay more. The good news is, it wasn't because of anything too terrible.  two reasons:
1) They couldn't find the middle seat belt buckle in the back
2) the window tinting in the back is "too dark" (hmm, I guess AZ and MD are slightly different in tinting allowance? I wonder why...)

They so kindly offered to take the back seat out to retrieve the seat belt buckle for $50, and I so kindly said NO.  So after almost 30 minutes of digging, leaning, grunting, I finally got it out!

Uno: DOS!

So then I started researching "DIY removing car window tinting."  After googling and advice via facebook, I finally marched on out to the car, with blow dryer in hand.  Look at me GO!

Revlon product placement. Want to pay me?

I was decently successful, but it's somewhat harder than what the youtube people made it look. Yesterday I successfully removed tinting from one full side back window, and two mini windows.  One of the back side windows is being a brat, so once it was getting a little too dark and cold, I gave up and went inside.  Today I wasn't quite in the mood for picking and peeling and saying bad things, so I'll be at it again tomorrow.  Our newer car is getting inspected on Saturday, and I'm pretty sure it's going to fail the tinting too.  

After more annoying things and more money than I want to think of (don't get me going, my blood might boil or I might start crying, depending on the day) our cars will finally be registered!