Yogurt

A week or so ago, Jeanette wrote a letter on her blog describing how awesome the Yoplait red velvet cake yogurt is. Red velvet cake yogurt??? Say what??? I like yogurt…I like red velvet cake… When we went grocery shopping last week, I picked some up. It tasted JUST LIKE….pink yogurt. Sorry, Jeanette…I didn’t get it.

Here’s the thing: it would have been good if it was called…I dunno – pink yogurt. But Yoplait is NEVER going to duplicate the taste of, say, red velvet cake or cheesecake in a little plastic cup for 110 calories or less. It’s just not going to happen. Yogurt is yogurt. You can make it taste fruity, but you are never going to make it taste like a baked good or pastry; I’m pretty sure Yoplait is setting people up for disappointment when they describe it as such.

If I open a yogurt, a strawberry yogurt, I pretty much anticipate yogurt…with some strawberry. If I open a strawberry cheesecake yogurt…my expectations are a little higher. But it’s still going to taste like a strawberry yogurt…maybe with a slight tang. And I am going to be disappointed. White chocolate raspberry? Raspberry. Apple turnover? Apple. Chocolate cake? Vomit, if I remember correctly.

You know what IS good? Trix yogurt: ALSO made by Yoplait, but without the deceptive titles. Y-U-M.

(my fave – the strawberry kiwi and cotton candy!)

Our Little Bird Watcher

We hung bird feeders off the porch. We did this partly because we like birds...but also because Buster likes birds. In Raleigh he would sit at the window and watch them on the porch all day. Since we now have a super lovely screened in porch, we can let Buster outside. The first time he saw a bird at the bird feeder, he was inside, and went FLYING out the back door and flew up on the railing. I'm surprised he didn't go right trough the screen. Of course the bird took off before his feet ever touched the railing. This happened several times.

I was in the kitchen Sunday evening and I looked out the back door and saw him crouched down on the floor. I looked up at the bird feeder, and there was a little bird eating! Buster just sat there the whole time and watched as the bird ate. In fact, the bird only left when I tested my luck and walked out on the porch for a better picture. I think he has learned that if he jumps, they leave. He's becoming quite the little bird watcher!

(even though he's in "pounce" stance, he never once jumped!)

Spot Steeler

The other day, I got out of bed to get ready for work. I went into the bathroom to start doing my hair, and when I came back out, this is what I found:

He totally stole my spot. He took his little body and curled right up in my head dent on the pillow! Man, was I jealous.

Irish Car Bombs

One of the best parts of St. Patrick's Day is obviously the Irish Car Bombs. Duh.

We had some people over to the house to wear, eat and drink green stuff and Irish Car Bombs. I'm not going to say I was the only fun one in the group, but... It was like pulling teeth to get someone to do one with me. Nobody would. Christopher finally took pity on me and agreed to participate.

(I'm excited, he's not)

(ready, set...)

(go!)

(Christopher told me I couldn't post this picture, because he said people would think he was throwing up, when really he was just "wiping curdled beer and liquor out of his beard." Gross. I figured we could compromise, and I would use the picture, but explain the situation.)

Boo said I used too much beer, and I might have agreed with him, but upon further research, I'm not sure I did. It said 3/4 a pint...and I think that was probably close. Perhaps we were just out of practice?

The [Not] Silver Mirror

I had this image in my head of a silver mirror I wanted over the fireplace. I've never seen one like it, so I'm not particularly sure it even exists, but I knew I wanted it. I looked in...ooooh...A LOT of different stores. Nothing even close. Finally, Pottery Barn came to the rescue (they usually don't let me down). They had a mirror that was very similar to what I was looking for. But...what's that? It's $500??? Man! And that's BEFORE the delivery surcharge, shipping and tax? Blast! Just doesn't seem practical. (Hmmm...is practical the right word? Or would the term be "in the budget"? Practical for the budget?)

I looked some more.

Nothing.

Finally, I was in Home Goods, and saw a nice big mirror for $40. I thought "Why can't I just like that mirror?" And then I thought "I bet I can make that mirror silver."

I went to Michael's and bought a few different "silver leafing" products, came home, and got to work. I didn't want pure silver, but more of a mercury glass / silver leaf look. I think it came out pretty good! (I had to do it twice, because the "high gloss" sealant that I put over it did the opposite of what you would expect from something labeled "high gloss." It made it quite matte looking. Blah.) In addition to coming out pretty good, it came out under $500! More like $80. Nice!

(ta-da!)

You might also notice there are mystery lines on the mirror. Either mystery lines, or the wall opposite the mirror is a cinder block wall. The wall isn't made of cinder blocks, but the lines are a mystery...a sort-of mystery. Those lines were where I had taped paper over the mirror, but the tape wasn't ON the mirror...it was on the paper. Additionally, you can't see even a hint of those lines when you are just looking at the mirror. It's only through the camera. Why? I don't understand? Does anyone else know?

(Boo brought those flowers home for me the other day. Wasn't that sweet? They look so pretty there!)

Blowing Amy's Cover

I hope Amy doesn't get upset with me for blowing her cat-hater cover, but I have to do it. We had some people over last weekend and after everyone else left, she and I watched a movie. She was curled up on the couch under a blanket and Buster Cat Nixon just jumped right up there with her and and snuggled up on her chest. It was really pretty adorable. And you know what? She totally enjoyed it. I'm glad I caught it on camera otherwise she might have tried to deny it. ;-)

(Buster hearts Amy)

One Last Bit Of Snow!

I know we are all done with the snow and ready for some warm weather, but I just got these pictures off my camera and had to share. The house looked so pretty in the snow, and Buster just LOVED watching it! This was the last snow we had.

(Christopher liked it too)

(out on the back porch)

(There are birds. In addition to the snow, Buster also likes to watch the birds...)

Bathroom Monitor

This funny story popped in my head a few days ago. I can’t even begin to tell you what made me think of it, but I just had to laugh when I remembered it. I didn't laugh when it happened, but I laughed yesterday.

It’s a work story. (Not my current work, thank goodness.)

This was not my most favorite job. One day I was sitting at my desk and the owner of the company comes up to me. He asks me if I can come with him. “Absolutely,” I replied and I picked up my notebook and a pen. He looked at the notebook and said, “Oh, you don’t need that.”

I follow him down the hall and he walks into one of the bathrooms. Uhm…yeah. About that…I don’t make a habit of going into bathrooms with creepy men…

I just kind of looked at him from outside the bathroom, and he looked at me. He looked at me like “what are you waiting for?” and then motioned for me to follow him. I did.

We’re both in the bathroom now – it was one of those one-seaters. He points to the toilet and says, “Do you see that?” So many things were going through my head right then, but I replied with a simple “see what?” He leans down real close to the toilet and motions me closer still.

{Breaking away from this story for one brief moment: when I first started that job (hadn’t even been there a week), I was sitting in my boss’ office, when a coworker walked into the kitchen across the hall from the office. He was my age, seemed kind of cool. He dressed nicely, and as he turned around, I saw a dip can circle in his back pocket. I did a double take because I thought, “surely Brad doesn’t dip.” As I was staring at his bum, he turns and catches me. And then he asks “Can I help you?” as he backs up against to the counter to hide his rear.} Not even then was I as uncomfortable as I was with the owner. In the bathroom.

Back to the story at hand: He points, I look, I see nothing. I look harder. Still nothing. I look up at him. He points out this teensy tiny stream of water rolling down the inside of the toilet bowl. (What? Is that not supposed to do that?) He asks if I see it now, and I reply yes.

It seems that trickle indicated a slow leak…no, not even a leak…I don’t even know how to describe this. Somehow, since the water was slowly running, the offices below ours could hear a slight trickling sound in the pipes. No leak, mind you, just a slow trickling sound. That, apparently, was embarrassing to the owner of the company. (Nope, I still don’t understand why.)

He informed me that he was pretty sure he had fixed the problem, but that I was to keep an eye on that for him – I needed to check it a few times a day, and be sure to let him know if I saw anything.

Yeah. Riiiiight. I’ll stay right on top of that. Do you know how many times I went in that bathroom after that?

DUDE! We had a janitor!!! Why would you think that would fall under my job description? Seriously. Not even under “other duties as necessary.”

Cool Things I Can Do In My Kitchen

I’ve really been enjoying a few things that I can do in the house kitchen that I couldn’t in the old apartment kitchen.

1. I can cook. There wasn’t enough room to cook in the apartment, and even if there was, our oven was busted.
2. I can use the freezer…and still eat the food afterward. The freezer in the apartment was busted. It mostly thawed everything and then refroze it.
3. I can wash cookie sheets. The sink is big enough to do that…without pouring water all over the rest of the kitchen.
4. I can wash things in the dishwasher, and when they are done, they are all still in the same place as when I left them. Additionally, they are not turned right side up, holding half the water from the dishwasher.
5. I can keep my trashcan NOT out in the middle of the kitchen floor.
6. I can eat in my kitchen. It’s awesome. We even moved the TV trays up to the bonus room!

I think I like the new house!

I read in the Winston Salem Journal today that...oh wait...no I didn't...I don't get the paper.

Christopher and I got the paper every day when we lived in Raleigh. We loved the paper; there was the news, and the crosswords...the sudoku, the ads, and the coupons. *sigh*

When we moved into the apartment in Kernersville, we didn't see too much point: we didn't know how long we would be there, and it was an apartment - there's no telling who would decide to pick up our paper before we did.

So when we moved into our new house, we were really excited to start subscribing to the Winston Salem Journal. We hadn't even been in the house a week when I got online to subscribe. I noticed there was no "first-time subscriber" rate. Pretty much all newspapers offer first time subscribers some sort of special offer, so I set out to do some research. I found two "discount news" websites where you could subscribe to paper for a lower rate...the Journal was a nice $50 less expensive! $50 is a significant amount of money.

Yay! Paper!

Sadness...no paper. Both sites said they didn't deliver to Lewisville. I have no idea why they said that, because they do. Anyway, Christopher and I thought we might stop by the mall over the weekend where I had seen one of those stands where they hand out free newspapers and try to get you to subscribe - they have special rates.

We didn't make it to the mall that weekend, but the following week, we got a newspaper dropped in our driveway, along with a flyer to subscribe to the paper - 52 weeks for $119.78 - the discounted price! Woohoo! All we had to do was call the number and subscribe!

As soon as I got home, I got my credit card out and called the number. Yay! Paper! Nope. It was voicemail. As in - went straight to voicemail. The voicemail instructed me to leave my name, phone number, and address - somebody would return my call within 24 hours. Yippee! Paper! Negative. No call, no paper.

I waited a week. A WEEK, I tell you. No call. I called yesterday morning - left my name, number, address, and a polite note that this was my second call, so if someone could please return my call, I would appreciate it. WOOT! Paper! Wrong.

I called this morning. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me! I called and pressed five for subscriptions. Oh yeah - outsmarted them! I got a real person too! Woohoo!!!! FINALLY! PAPER! Wrong again. For crying out loud! She couldn't help me. The subscription woman couldn't help me! Since this was a promotional rate, I had to talk directly to that department. For real??? You will never guess what she asked me for. Name. Phone number. Address. She did apologize. She said someone would return my call by the end of the day.

Several hours passed...and come on - who are we kidding. I'm not holding my breath. I went to their website, and found the "home delivery" email address. I know this probably isn't the EXACT department I need to be going to, but it's close. And surely, once I tell my story: THREE calls, with NO help, whoever reading is going to walk my email over to someone who can call me immediately. Bwahahahaha! Laughable.

4:00-ish rolls around with not a call, not a returned email. I decided to tweet about it:

I guess @JournalNow has enough subscribers since NOBODY will return my calls or email w/ request to subscribe. Stay tuned for blog post...

AND THEN as if that wasn't enough, good friend B-Tim followed that up with:

We had an AWFUL time getting a paper post-move. RT @gingerlyn I guess @JournalNow has enough subscribers since NOBODY will return my calls

That will do it. Companies HATE bad press on Twitter. Not. A. Thing. AREYOUKIDDINGME???

Christopher said "Don't worry about it - I'll just go out every Sunday and pick it up. I guess we don't have to have it every day." Seriously? Hells yes we do. It's a matter of principle now. I have never been so adamant in my life that someone WILL take my $119.78!

Here all these newspapers are all "Boo-hoo! We are going out of business. We don't have anymore subscribers. Wah-wah! The big-bad-internet is putting us out of business." Maybe it's not the internet. Maybe they just won't let anyone subscribe to their Secret Home Delivery Society.

I suspect the newspaper would answer with something along the lines of - not being able to support the staff to return all the calls - what with the low subscriptions, and all. Well, then throw a promotion code up on that flyer! I would have MUCH rather subscribed online anyway!

And don't think I didn't go to the News & Record's website today. They don't deliver out here.

If you know someone at the Winston Salem Journal, tell them to call me.

The House!

So I had all these grand plans for great blog posts about the house, but I have done nothing but disappoint. Sorry. Everyone has asked. And I have been super surprised and excited when people I didn't even know read my blog asked when they were going to see a house post! (I LOVE when people read my blog! Thanks for reading, and for asking!) So, rather than grand posts, I am just going to throw up a bunch of pictures and start describing. I will go back to the "grand" when all the boxes are unpacked and I'm not staring at a crock pot on the dining room floor.

(This is the house! I didn't even take this picture. It's the MLS picture. I haven't taken a picture of the outside yet.)

(Favorite part of the house Part I: The Front Door (and there's the aforementioned crock pot sitting on the dining room floor...with a skillet behind it...))

(Favorite part of the house Part II: The Dining Room Ceiling)

(Christopher was so nice to hang these pictures for me last night! They are wedding pictures, and this is the first time I have seen them in over a year! What a novel idea: hanging pictures you paid for!)

(wedding pictures)

(Christopher found this super cool ottoman! He found it after I had picked another rug out, but it didn't match the rug, so I found this current rug, and I LOVE the rug, AND the ottoman!)

(New buffet. This is where the reindeer live.)

That's all I have for now. I need to go find a home for all the stuff in the box in the bathroom. I will try to do better with the blog.