Fun with PhotoBooth Part Deux

Something tells me that Ruby figured out how to use PhotoBooth.

Neurosis

As a child, I had many more neurosis than I have now. For instance, if I used my right hand to hold the stair railing when I climbed the stairs, upon reaching the top I would have to reach over with my left hand and touch the railing so that my hands felt even. Whatever I touched for an amount of time on one of my hands, I would then have to even it out by touching something with the other side. I know - weird. I knew this was odd at the time and when I was about 10 I remember breaking myself of this habit - letting my hands feel uneven, even if made my skin crawl, but eventually it wore off and I didn't think about it anymore. Another example was that my arm hairs always had to be going in the same direction. If someone brushed passed me and mussed them, I would immediate have to smooth them over. This eventually ended when my brothers and their friends discovered this. I was subjected to many an arm rubbing and was basically forced to not care after the 100th arm hair mess up. Some others were constantly thinking I was really just in a dream, having to have my cuticles pushed back at all times, convinced that the blue I saw was a different blue than someone else saw - perhaps a red or a green - my red or green, of course. Another one of these quirks was really, really, really wanting to know what I looked like with my eyes closed. I would stand in front of the mirror and blink my eyes hoping to catch myself and get a glimpse. It never worked, of course. It was much like trying to lick your own ear or kiss your own elbow. Go ahead, try. Anyway, our computer has this feature called "Photo Booth" - kinda like a built-in web cam. The other day I was looking through all the pictures we have taken with it and found this photo. I now know what I look like with my eyes closed. One more neurosis down, a million more to go...

Chalkboard Wall Art by Ruby

A banana

Cat Scratch Fever

After dropping Ruby off at Preschool and heading to Yoga, I passed this sign but wasn't sure that I had read it right. It just seemed too good to be true, so I quickly pulled off the road to see if my eyes were playing tricks on me. They were not. Imagine my delight in discovering our main highway in Hershey is in good hands.

The Beatles

According to Ruby, they are "John, Paul, George and Bingo. The one with the big nose."

It happened over eggs

So I got hit on today while buying eggs at a gas station (and that's a whole other blog, my friend) by a middle-aged Middle Eastern man who smelled of cumin...which smells like B.O. ...AND I WAS STOKED! This never happens to me and it's always been like this except for the occasional passing-by of a gardener's truck filled to the brim with whistling Latinos but that doesn't count. They'd whistle at the love child of Carrot Top and Janet Reno (being played by Will Ferrell.) And now that I'm married, the event is totally obsolete, which is fine - you can't miss what you never had.

I decided long ago in my pre-married life that I must put out a "don't talk to me" vibe or something because I saw girls get hit on all the time and it was never me. I mean, I'm aware that I'm not a supermodel by any stretch of the imagination but I consider myself mildly attractive with no unfortunate deformaties that would cause someone to head to the nearest trash can to dry heave into. So when girls all around me were getting flirted with by complete strangers, why was I not getting flirted with by complete strangers? I've come up with some reasons behind this never-getting-hit-on-hardly-ever theory:
1) I was getting hit on but never realized it (wishful thinking)
2) I'm a stuck up snob who thinks she's average looking but really is butt-ugly but never realized it
3) I was usually standing next to:
a) one of my boyfriends (who I fondly refer to as my "chain of fools" now)
or
b) one of my so-strikingly-gorgeous-you-just-about-fall-over friends or so-over-the-top-CUTE-you-just-can't-handle-it friends so I was always completely overshadowed
Yep. I think that's the one. Well today Plain Jane had herself a victory, my pretties. The stinky gas station cashier man made a pass at me over a carton of eggs and a package of Swedish Fish. How do you like THEM apples?

Awesome.

I am related to none of these people in the picture but I sooo want to live in this barn.

I'm still crying

Ruby: Do you nurse May-May anymore?
Me: No.
Ruby: Why not?
Me: She got too big.
Ruby: Are your boobies still full of milk?
Me: Nope.
Ruby: Yah, I can tell. Well, your bottom cheeks are still full of milk, though. Full, full, FULL!

Fun in Intercourse, Pennsylvania

Brandon's sister Sarah came to visit us for the weekend and we had a blast. She attended two of my spin classes and spun with the best of 'em, babysat the kiddies one night to let Brandon and I have a rare rare rare night out on the town, and we took her to Intercourse, Pennsylvania (yes, that's it's real name and yes, we made dirty jokes the entire time we were there) which is an Amish town. While we were in Intercourse (heehee,giggle,giggle) we took a 5 mile buggy ride through the Amish countryside where Ruby sat up from with our fake-Amish driver. I think by the end of the ride, Jebadiah or whatever his fake-name was regretted offering the seat to her - she talked his ear off the entire time and was constantly interupting his memorized yet educational commentary about Amish life. My daughter is very, very friendly. "Hi, I'm Ruby and I have Diabetes! Are you our driver? I love this buggy! What's that thing on the ground? Do you watch TV? Do you like cartoons? That's my sister May May. She's one. What's your name? What are your horses names? What's that guy doing over there? He looks like a pirate. Why do you have a beard? Do you like your beard?, etc." Anyway, we had a great time with Sarah and were sad to see her go. Good thing Christmas is right around the corner.

Toto, we're not in CA anymore

The agriculture in the background of this picture really proves a point...

Pennsylvania Graffiti

Even though I'm bitter towards Pennsylvania right now (get me out of this hill-billy state!) they do have some funny people. I enjoy this sign everytime I stop at it and on most occasions bust out some old school dance moves. Thank you Pennsylvania Graffiti person, for making my drive to preschool through the Pennsylvania farmland enjoyable.

The Hershey Crap Show

So I have busted my booty for the past 3 weeks making my bags - "Kinda Quirky. Little bags for little girls." - that was my little "business." Every spare second was spent making TONS of these things; I put my heart and soul into them, each one was different and unique from the rest and I did a good job. I'm saying all this because I failed miserabley. It started 3 weeks ago, I paid my $40 entry fee and managed to get a primo spot located in the center of the middle school gymnasium, worked my tail off and made 20 bags in all, neglected all other responsibilties pretty much for the following 3 weeks, got no sleep at all, constructed a really cute display for them to hang on, set up babysitters for my kids since Brandon was on call, loaded and unloaded (and then loaded and unloaded again when I got home) ALONE, hung up my beloved bags and waited for the masses to come but was sorely disappointed when the masses came, oohed and aahed over them, but then hung them back up and went on their merry way to buy their hodge-podge kitchy potpurri poop. Let me give you a mental picture of what the Hershey Craft Show looked like. A middle school with every hallway, classroom, cafeteria and gymnasium sectioned off into 5x15 ft. squares, designating each booth. Such booths held things such as Pittsburg Steelers fleece "no-sew" blankets, dried gourds painted like geese, croteched yarn "dish cloths", rock candy, New York Yankee stadium seat cushions, slap bracelets, dried flower wreaths, things made out of popcicle sticks and pipe cleaners...you get the idea: CRAP!!! Crap. Crap. Crap. I had several other vendors tell me that this wasn't the type of venue that I should be selling my bags at, but I should sell them at "high end boutiques" or "funky artsy farsty shows." That was nice, but what did that say about them and their products? Anyway, so that's my next step - hitting boutiques up and seeing how they do there. I'm also thinking about starting up a website, so we'll see. I'm posting pictures of a couple of my little beauties. Here they are. I THINK THEY'RE COOL. This isn't going to stop me. No siree. These country bumpkins aren't going to squash my little dreams. Hmph.

Craft Show

So I've made these funky purses for little girls and they are things of beauty. Very Oilily, which if you've never walked into their store, picked up their catalogue or skimmed their website, be glad because you just about have to be a bajillionaire to shell out that kind of $$$ for kids' clothes (they have adult stuff, too) and the fact that I cannot afford these clothes makes me want to crawl into my bed and cry. Ok, maybe not to that extent - I'm wordly but not that wordly, but their stuff is beyond supercute - very funky and very euro and their stuff makes me drool all over myself which is what I deserve, I guess. So anyway, I make these purses that are Oilily inspired. I just found out that the local township is holding a craft show that apparently is something to shout about so I am entering it and only have three weeks to produce enough product not to look lame, which is highly likely anyway, so I won't be on the blog for awhile, I'll be creating purses. Please stop banging your forehead against the keyboard, I'll be back post-craft show.

Ricketts Glen

Brandon has this week off, so we have been doing some fun stuff. Tuesday we went to Ricketts Glen, a state park in northern PA. It took forever to get to but the drive was gorgeous and the girls were perfect angels - which is sorta rare. I have wild children. Sweet, but wild. Anyway, the leaves are starting to change here and it was just beautiful. We BBQ'd and had a picinic in the middle of a forest (Ruby got to roast a marshmellow! A special treat for our little diabetic) and then went on a hike where we saw a bunch of waterfalls. The girls were great on the way back and it was a great day.

Indian Night!

I first fell in love with Indian food back when I was just a young pup. My BFF Elizabeth's dad took me and E to a little hole in the wall place across the street from South Coast Plaza Mall where they served their food on paper plates and they gave you plastic utensils to eat with. I was very skeptical at first, being raised in a "meat and potato" kind of family when it comes to food. Very good meat and potatoes, but exotic food was something that didn't pass my lips with the exception of Chinese food and later on, sushi, which started with the safe-sushi: California rolls, but since then I have expanded to raw fish and sushi has become another passionate food-love of mine. So anyway, he takes us to this place where I think the only reason they passed the health-code-inspection is that they threatened the poor inspector with a hit out on him and his family from the Indian mafia. There, in the dirty little 10'x10' "restaurant" - which was actually a galley kitchen behind the register, and 2 plastic tables and chairs, I tasted my first tandoori, tikka and naan. Their naan literally melted in your mouth. If it's still around, I want to go back and taste their vindaloos and masalas. I bet they're delicious.
So, anyway, I wanted to do something fun for the fam, so I planned an Indian night, where I would cook Indian food, play Indian music, wear Indian garb, teach Ruby about India and post pictures of India all around the house. I used to do fun, silly stuff like this for my family (my Mom, Dad, brothers family - mostly for my brothers) from time to time - make treasure hunts, etc., so I thought I'd revert back to that time and do something for my little family (husband, little girls - family.) So out of all those things that I had dreamed and planned of for Indian night, what resulted because of lack of time and energy, was Indian food and a little teaching session to Ruby about India, which I can't even call a teaching session because I didn't do the research on India that I had intended, so the conversation went something like this:

Me: Ruby, do you know what kind of food we're eating tonight?
Ruby: Stinky food?
Me: Yes! It's called Indian food and it's delicious. It comes from a country called India.
Ruby: What's India?
Me: It's a big place where lots of people live. They uh, like to uh, play flutes and make snakes dance. They play music like this : (insert tune from "There's a place in France where the naked ladies dance" here.) And they wear funny hats called turbans...I think...

Then we had DELICIOUS Indian food and I'll include the recipes I used in case any of you other Indian food lovers wanted to have your own Indian Night. Your Indian teaching session would most likely be MUCH more informative (and accurate) then mine.
Anyway here are the recipes. I made Chicken Tikka Masala and Naan.

Chicken Tikka Masala
1 cup yogurt
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 Tbsp minced fresh ginger
1 tsp salt
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite size pieces
4 long skewers
1 Tbsp butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

Directions:
1. In a large bowl, combine yogurt, lemon juice and 2 tsp cumin, cinnamon, cayenne, black pepper, ginger, and 1 tsp salt. Stir in chicken, cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.
2. Preheat grill.
3. Lightly oil the grill grate. Thread chicken onto skewers and discard marinade. Grill until juices run clear, about 5 minutes on each side.
4. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute garlic and jalapeno for 1 minute. Season with 2 tsp cumin, paprika and 1 tsp salt. Stir in tomato sauce and cream. Simmer on low heat until sauce thickens, about 20 minutes. Add grilled chicken and simmer for 10 minutes. Transfer to a serving platter and garnish with fresh cilantro.

Naan

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 egg, beaten
2 teaspoons salt
4 1/2 cups bread flour
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/4 cup butter, melted

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes, until frothy. Stir in sugar, milk, egg, salt, and enough flour to make a soft dough. Knead for 6 to 8 minutes on a lightly floured surface, or until smooth. Place dough in a well oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and set aside to rise. Let it rise 1 hour, until the dough has doubled in volume.
Punch down dough, and knead in garlic. Pinch off small handfuls of dough about the size of a golf ball. Roll into balls, and place on a tray. Cover with a towel, and allow to rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.
During the second rising, preheat grill to high heat.
At grill side, roll one ball of dough out into a thin circle. Lightly oil grill. Place dough on grill, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until puffy and lightly browned. Brush uncooked side with butter, and turn over. Brush cooked side with butter, and cook until browned, another 2 to 4 minutes. Remove from grill, and continue the process until all the naan has been prepared.

Happy eating!

Hand Foot & Mouth Disease

This is the latest little germ that's been hanging around our house. My children are petri dishes, I've decided. It doesn't matter that we go through economy sized antibacterial soap bottles faster than you can, I don't know, tie your shoe. With a husband who has O.C.D. tendancies when it comes to washing his hands, I'm pretty sure it's not Brandon bringing the little bugs home. I was going to post a picture off the internet of what Hand Foot & Mouth disease looks like just for kicks, but then I thought that those of you reading this that have not been exposed to the same horrific medical school text book pictures that I have might be grossed out. As for me, I am now desensitized from all things guts and blood. The picture I was going to post was of a child's tongue covered with dime sized pussy sores, which is what is currently covering my Ruby's mouth. Needless to say, the absolute LAST thing she wants to do is eat. But people, especially children, with Diabetes HAVE to eat every two hours so she has literally been crying all day and all night (2 nights ago she finally fell asleep at 3:30 am, last night at 2 am and of course still wakes up at 6:30 am anyway) and there's nothing I can do but keep giving her non-effective Tylenol and force her to eat so she doesn't end up in the hospital. So, as I sit here on the brink of insanity, what do I decide to do? Blog, of course!

you had no idea...

My, we make a lovely couple.

Fun with "Photo Booth"

Sorry PC lovers. Macs are waaaay more fun.

Jealous Much?

Ok, so it was back in May when we went to Maui, but I salivate daily over these pictures, so I thought you all should, too.

So these are my friends and our back sides. Our best sides, if you want to know the truth. We ziplined down Mt. Haleakala. Well, not like down the whole mountain, which was what I was initially envisioning, just down part of it and it was really, really fun. These harnesses were SUPER comfy, too, by the way.


Here we are at the Seven Sacred Pools on our way back from Hana, which was an adventure in itself. Someday I'll have a whole blog dedicated to our trip and especially our overnite stay in Hana, which will be lengthy but full of comedy...and intrigue...so stay tuned. Oh, and can I just mention how awesome these people are that we are with? These are our best buddies from Med school. We had THE BEST time with our friends and miss them like crazy. MEDITERREAN CRUISE 2012 GUYS! Woo! Ok, that was depressing.


This is me getting ready for take off (or maybe I had just landed?) on a power hang glider. Seated with me, is my pilot, a German man named Armin, who asked me when we were thousands of feet in the air if I liked to breastfeed and told me to drink Guiness to boost my milk supply. Thanks for the tip, Armin! I'll remember that next time.


My babe-o-licious friend Alisa and I over the Seven Sacred Pools. Doesn't this place look divine? And don't we look like utter sirens atop this place of paradise?


If you've never played hide and seek in a bamboo forest, I highly recommend it.


Other highlights of the trip: Hana (blog to come), Hagen Daz every night, our huge condo (Thanks Bro & Sis J!), flying without kids, the burly men who kept checking out my girlfriends but totally ignoring me, Scrubs on DVD, not hyperventalating while snorkelling, managing not to get that sunburned, Sudoku, good food, NO KIDS = uninterupted sleep, talking to our kids every day, snorkel "cruise" to Molokai, talking to tipsy people in the jacuzzi, laying out, swimming in the ocean, getting pummelled by waves in the ocean, grilled pineapple (Thanks, boys!), steams in the steam room with my girls, hiking in amazing terrain, watching my husband jump off a cliff into a pool of water that he was "pretty sure" was deep enough, and just doing WHATEVER WE WANTED for 7 days straight! We had a fabulous time.

A Week of "Firsts"

First day of Preschool:


First visitor to come and see us in Pennsylvania - Heather!:


First Leotard/day of Gymnastics: (Heather and I took Ruby to her first day of gymnastics, where she was the only one NOT wearing a leotard. Heather turned to me and said "Oh, we're getting her one. We're going straight to the store right after class." So here is the pretty leotard Heather got for Ruby. Thanks again, Heather!)


First trip to the creek by our house: