Hey France?

SUCK IT.

PS - totally have a crush on Cullen Jones.

Olympics, Updates and other Important Randomness

First, some updates from this week's previous blog posts, since I know that you've all spent many a sleepless night wondering about these details of my life:

Walgreen's: $14.55 - for three freaking items. Outrage.

Total Lotto Winnings: it actually ended up being $68.00. Whoop Whoop. That's $2.00 more than we thought. The Cowboy came home last night and threw $18.00 at me and told me to have a ball. I thought that was rather unfair, and that I deserved at least 50% of the total earnings since it was my idea to gamble in the first place, but then I realized I can get at least 2 quality skeins of yarn for $18.00 (and a lot more, if I'm thrifty), so I shut the hell up and pocketed my money.


I decided to go ahead and join the Ravelympics. I'm on Team Austin, and have joined 2 events; WIP wrestling (I'm going to finish those Purple Socks of Death if it kills me...and it might), and Sock Put (I'm a glutton for punishment). It just kicked off this morning at 7:00am CST, and already I'm a little nervous that I am not going to make it. I don't like anyone to be the boss of me, and I don't like feeling like I HAVE to finish these items. But I'm going to give it my best effort.

My friend Bev told me about this awesome website where you can go and listen to pretty much whatever you want, for free, and they stream it onto your computer. You just type in what you want to hear, and they find it and play it for you, as well as similar artists/songs/etc. This has come in handy for me since my mp3 player broke last week. Piece of $#!+. Anyway, check it out if you are able to listen at work. It's awesome. It's called Pandora Radio.

Speaking of music, (and bad music at that, because Pandora is playing "Gloria" by Laura Branigan for me right now...I might have to tell it no thanks to that one) I saw earlier this week that Spinner.com had come out with a list of the 20 Worst Songs Ever. You can click on the link if you want to read the list, and while I agree wholeheartedly with most of their choices, (except that I happen to like #8, Ebony & Ivory, but that's just me), there is a big gaping hole where one noticeable horrendous song is missing. Um, hello? Spinner.com? It's called THE KOKOMO by The Beach Boys. You know, Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I wanna take ya. Bermuda, Bahama. Come on, pretty mama. Shit, now I'm gonna have that song in my head all day.

I'm off to listen to Ebony & Ivory.

I am super excited about the Olympics tonight! I'm going to crack open a bottle of wine (I haven't been able to imbibe in over 2 weeks because I've been on meds) and chillax and knit. And ok let's be honest, cry like a little baby. Because that's what I do when I watch the Olympics. It's gonna be great.

Aggie hopes you all have a great weekend!!

Tales from the Crock...and other

otOh

Em

Geeeeeeee.

The pot roast was good. Real good. Real real good. Gooooooood. The recipe, in case you're interested, was a combination of recipes I had found in my "Fix It and Forget It" Cookbook, and Wonder's recipe for pot roast. It could not have been easier. I mean, a monkey could have made this pot roast.

Ingredients:

2-4 pound sirloin tip roast (you can use a chuck roast if that's all you have, or all you can find, but Wonder recommended a sirloin tip roast, and it wasn't that much more expensive)

1 lb. baby carrots

3 regular sized cans of new potatoes (I know, you're thinking "canned potatoes?". I know this, because that is what I thought too...but go with me here...I mean, they're a lot easier than peeling and chopping up a bunch of regular potatoes.....they are in such cute little perfect shapes already....and they absorb the juice and flavor of the meat so well...just try it, but make sure you strain them, and then rinse them off real quick)

1/2 bag of frozen pearl onions (again, you could use fresh, regular onions, but I made this at 6:30 in the morning, and I didn't feel like chopping up an onion and having that smell on my hands all day)

1 package Lipton (or generic brand, I used HEB brand) French Onion Soup Mix

1 bay leaf

3 cups water

How To:

Put the roast, carrots, rinsed (!) potatoes, and onions in the crock pot. In a large measuring cup, or bowl, or whatever, measure out 3 cups of water and add the soup mix. Whisk until blended, and pour over the meat. Add bay leaf. Set crock pot to low (I have different hour settings, and set it to the lowest I could, which was 10 hours) and go about your buisness. Enjoy the aroma of the meat cooking. Mmmmm. After 10 hours (probably it was done in 8, and then it just sat and soaked up all that yummy juice), eat!

Notes:

The meat was so tender, we just used our forks to pull it apart. Also, I have a very large crock pot, so if you have a smaller one, you might have to cook the meat first, (overnight?) and then the veggies after that. This is what Wonder says she does. And, 3 cups of water is a lot of liquid, you could probably get away with 2 but a)I have a fear of burning things in my crock pot (because it's betrayed me before) and b)with the leftover juices, I made a delicious little simple gravy. I put butter and flour in a pan, let it melt and mix together, and added some of the juice, brought it up to a boil and Voila! Gravy. Twas most tasty, if I do say so myself. And I do.

The Olympics!!!!!!

Check this bad boy out. It combines my two great loves. The Olympics and Cupcakes. Cupcakes and the Olympics. Hot damn.

3 days to go!!!! I know what I will be doing this weekend. I just wish I knew where I could get some of those cupcakes.

Speaking of the Olympics (non knitters beware, you will not understand anything of what I'm about to say), I've been considering joining the Ravelympics for a few weeks now, but have been hesitant to do so. I was never good at competitive sports, which is perhaps why I took up knitting as a hobby in the first place, and so the idea of competitive knitting puts me off a little. I am clearly running out of time to make my decision, but procrastination is my middle name (Ok, actually it's Elizabeth, but whatevs) and I like to live on the edge. Anyway, if you are knitty inclined, please comment me and tell me why (or why not) I should participate (or not) in the Ravelympics. I mean I guess it's not like I won't ever have any time to knit, since I plan to sit my happy ass in front of the telly and watch watch watch all day long watch.

I got raped

Settle. I didn't really get raped. But last night we needed dishwashing detergent, and I needed a stick of deoderant (it broke off in my shirt when I was putting it on yesterday morning. I hate when it does that), so I ran to Walgreens. There's a Walgreens on the corner by our house, it's the closest store. I didn't feel like driving all the way to HEB (the grocery store) or Wal-Mart (and I hate Wal-Mart anyway), so Walgreens it was.

I purchased the above pictured 3 items. Anyone want to take a guess how much that cost me? Seriously, anyone. Guess. I will tell you later, in the comments section. Let me just tell you this, it was outrageous. I felt violated. I went home and took a hot shower.

Gratuitous Cute Kid Shot!

It's been awhile.

Dance, Sydney! Dance!!!!

Sometimes on Mondays, I have opinions about things. And I need to get them off my chest so I can begin the work week.

Yeah.

So first, and I'm going to preface this entire blog by saying that I almost feel badly about posting about the two people I'm going to post about together at the same time. I feel that one deserves our utmost respect and the other most certainly does not. But they are both things that have been bothering me, so here I go.

I don't really have anything profound to say about Tim Russert, but I always liked him and he will be missed. I liked him because he seemed like the kind of guy you'd be able to sit down with and throw a few beers back, or shots of whiskey if you prefer. He was a great moderator and an awesome reporter, but he also seemed like he'd be a lot of fun at a party. You know what I mean? I bet he had some good jokes.

Anyway, I'm saddened by his death, and my thoughts go to his family and friends.

Onto a much much much more happy subject. I don't know if this is normal, and if other people feel the same way regarding this as I do, but I. Love. The. Olympics.

Like, seriously. For real. Straight up. Word to your mother. I can't get enough of it. And I've officially started my own personal count down. 52 days. Whenever an Olympics is in swing, my life kind of becomes a cycle of, well, watching the Olympics. I tear up every time I hear the beginning of our national anthem. And you want to know a secret? I tear up when I hear "Oh Canada" too. Y'all know how I feel about our neighbors to the north. And that is one beautiful song. While I prefer the games of the Winter Olympics to that of the summer, I am nevertheless very excited about Beijing 2008. It seems like it's been way longer than just 2 years since the last games. Yay Olympics.

And now I will leave you with this and apologize if it terrifies you to your very core the way it does me. I just don't really know what it is I'm looking at exactly.

Is that her HAIR???? I mean, I know she's all cracked out and we should Respect and give the girl some privacy so she can get her rock on in peace, but WTF is that???? Why is she able to stand upright? Does she have small animals living in her hair? I can't imagine the need to have a nest that big sitting up there. Perhaps my friend Charlene needs to rescue them and bring them to live with Pebbles & Bam Bam.

Sorry if that's ruined your Monday. But I had to think about it all weekend. Here's to a great week!