Food Overload

I just got back from the fair. We were there from 11am-5pm. Good thing I was on my feet for all 6 hours because I ate a ton of food! Good thing the fair is only once a year!! I had: cheese curds, a corn dog, chocolate chip cookies, deep fried pickles, & a deep fried TWINKIE! Ugh. Don't judge... that was my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Healthy, no?

It was also FREEZING! Everyone had sweatshirts or jackets on! It's 61 degrees and cloudy right now! In august! With a brutal wind too! I had to buy a jacket because I was sooo cold walking around! As if Minnesota didn't screw us over with freezing winters it apparently took away our summer as well!

The deep fried twinkie! (Tastes like fried sweet bread, better than I thought! Soft & warm)

The big cow in the parade

The sea of people (click to make bigger, and see the crowd I was talking about in the last post!)

Tom & his pork chop

I'm off to go have a heart attack now!

Tom turns 28!

It was Tom's 28th birthday yesterday. Birthdays aren't a big deal to him. He says it's "just another day" but I secretly think he loved all the "Happy Birthdays" and people making a fuss over him. ;) His mom made him that huge cheesecake above. I still have 3/4 of it that I NEED to get rid of ASAP! I'm pretty sure there are 15,986,327,469 calories in that sucker!

I took him out to Red Lobster for dinner . They have their endless shrimp deal going on now and I have to say, for a skinny dude, he did great! One salad, one biscuit, mashed potatoes, three sides of rice, 91 shrimp, and a beer later he decided he was full enough to leave. I'd say I got my moneys worth on that dinner! Ha!

Here's the birthday boy & Rex

Here's us before dinner (couple of cheese balls!)

In other news, I am going to the STATE FAIR tomorrow! And I am super excited! I never thought it was "weird" that the state fair was such a big deal until I read this in the morning paper...(www.wcco.com)

"More than 1.6 million people visit the Minnesota State Fair every year. Twenty-five television and radio stations broadcast live from the fair daily. This is not how other states react to their fairs, so why are some Minnesotans so obsessed with the fair?

"I'm a fair fanatic," said one woman at the fair.

"I've gone 10 years in a row, you just don't miss it," added another.

If you're new to Minnesota, you're probably scratching your head about all of this non-stop, 12-day, State Fairapalooza.

"Our friends who live in Hawaii and Tennessee think we're really silly to come to the fair," said one fairgoer.

Connecticut and Rhode Island are the only states without an official state fair. Everyone else has a fair. But ask most Minnesotans and they'll echo the thought of this woman who said: "I think this is the best fair in the world."
*****

I say, BRING ON THE CHEESECURDS! Heck yes!

Crazies at work

I work in a hospital. I don't really like my job much at all. But it has decent pay and benefits and right now I'm lucky to have that. It's not somewhere I will work forever, but for now it's fine. I am an administrative assistant. I schedule appointments, do chart prep, make lab orders, fax things, help room patients, etc.

Now on to the good stuff...

I have some good stories since I work with the general public on a daily basis. Yesterday was a day that totally took the cake as far as weirdness goes! I go into this ladies exam room, to schedule her for some weekly appointments. The first thing she asks me is, "What is your sign?" I thought that was kinda weird, but a lot of people are into that kind of thing so I told her I am a Taurus. And she said, "Good, because if you were a Leo I wouldn't let you work with me." Funny thing is? She was dead serious. Next, I go to schedule her appointment for the week of September 15th. She tells me that she has to skip that whole week because she knows she is going to die that week. She doesn't know what year, but it will be the week of September 15th. Alrighty then... She also says she has a curse on her that made her blind. She thinks it's one of my co-workers that put the curse on her because she claims she went blind after her first visit with us last summer.

Needless to say, I scheduled her appointments as fast as I could and got out of there! I didn't even know what to say to her! What do you tell a crazy person like that?! Haha!

It's Tom's 28th birthday tomorrow! I am taking him out to Red Lobster for their all-you-can-eat shrimp. Yum! I loooove their cheesy biscuits! :)

For now I am going to go snuggle with my puppy and watch True Blood. Gotta Love Netflix!

Slippery Chicken?

So I'm sitting out in the garage while Tom & his brother play ping pong. His brother goes to hit the ball, and misses. Then he tried to pick it up off the ground, and drops it. Then he tires to scoop it up with the paddle, and misses again. After 4 tries to pick up this ball, I told him to have another beer and then try. ;)

He says, "Hey, this ball is slippery, it's like a little chicken!"

Um, I didn't know chickens were slippery?! Note to self...Don't ever try to catch a little chicken, they are apparently very slippery.

Drunk people say the darnedest things! :)

Men & their food

Our kitchen is still an empty space. We're still waiting on cabinets. The oven isn't plugged in yet because Tom's brother has to add a new outlet or something? All I know is he is going to work on it tonight and I will hopefully have a working oven by Monday! Yay!

And since we don't have an oven, and I'm pretty sick of eating grilled meat for the past 2 months now, we have resorted to eating out/take out. When it's just Tom & I, I don't have to worry about asking him to get the lower fat option, or a side salad, or whatever it is so that I can watch my calories and all that junk. But with these other guys...they request a meat lovers pizza, extra Alfredo sauce on the pasta, sweets & bacon for breakfast, etc. How in the hell am I supposed to lose weight like that?!!? And I can't really request my own stuff since it's always 5 to 1 and we don't have the money to order only me a totally different meal. :( I know it just means I have to be really careful and watch my portions... But it still sucks. I guess I could be honest and go to the store and buy my own bag of salad. That way I have no excuses... But let's be real. I'm not going to eat salad every weekend just because the guys are here and that's my only option. What kind of a life is that?!

I did lose almost 2 pounds this past week. (Totally only due to the stress/lack of hunger from the whole deal with my sister...) I only have about 6 pounds to go to my "goal" weight. I know I'm totally in the home stretch now. But I find myself CONSTANTLY worrying about gaining the weight back. I even thought about how I'm going to get pregnant and gain all that weight back and I just lost 50 pounds for nothing...Not that I plan on getting pregnant soon, but you know... I lost most of the weight but it will still be a struggle for the rest of my life. :(

And Rex is totally back to normal already. He's eating and running around full of energy. You would never know that he lost his manhood yesterday. Haha.

Football

So, I'm not sure if anyone knows much about football or even likes football... It's a pretty big deal around here. I'm even in a fantasy league. With a bunch of men. The first year? I took first place. The second year? I took third. Out of 22 people. Needless to say, the men were pretty pissed. Hehe

Anyway, Being from Minnesota, we have to cheer for the purple & Gold, the Mn Vikings. And our mortal enemy is the evil Green Bay Packers. (Yuck) Being neighboring states, this "football war" is a pretty serious thing! And good ol' Mr. Brett Favre was the Packer's quarterback for sixteen years. Obviously everyone from Minnesota hated Mr. Favre. Except now he is OUR QUARTERBACK!!!!

The filthy Packer is the starting QB for the Vikings now! Ugh :( This makes me sad for several reasons... I've hated him for as long as I've watched football. Also, if we finally make it to the Superbowl, I'm afraid the people from Wisconsin will say it's only because we stole Favre from them and finally got ourselves a decent QB.

Sigh... Looks like I have to cheer for Old Number 4 (in purple & gold instead of green & yellow...At least he is kinda cute for an old guy?)

Also, Rex got neutered today. I was so nervous about him all day. I don't know why, it's not like it's a major surgery! But everything turned out well and he is very tired and sore, but I know he will be back to himself in no time!

A lot on my mind

Something else happened at my housewarming party. My sister decided that she wanted nothing to do with our mom. Or anyone on that side of the family that still has contact with her. That includes me. I feel like I am mourning the death of my sister. She deleted her facebook, changed her phone number, changed her e-mail...I don't even have her address since she just moved for college. I'm in shock. How could she do this to me? To us? All because she thinks our mom doesn't care about her (not true) and she thinks she will be better off without our mom/her side of the family (not true.) She won't be in my wedding. She won't meet my future babies. I literally lost a sister. She wrote me a long, horrible letter. I can't even get into it yet--it's too raw. I can't believe she did this.

In other news, I wrote out my thank you cards today. I'm trying to push the raw hurt away for now. I have a life to live even if my sister decided to be a horrible bitch. I always think it's best to get the thank you's out as soon as possible. I had 25 to do...I don't know how I will hand write all the cards when I get married! That was a lot of work! That will probably be a week-long project! ;)

I also told Tom that we need to elope. Go somewhere tropical, just us. Grab a cheap dress and come back married--surprise! This whole thing with my sister and Tom's dad made me realize I don't want the drama when we make our own family. I want it to be just us. We'll see if I change my mind...

What else...Rex gets neutered on Friday. Poor boy. He has no clue what he's in for! We are also planning a camping trip over labor day weekend. Hopefully we can get reservations in time! The State.Fair is also coming up. I can't wait for some horribly greasy food and tacky carnival games!!! I love gooey cheese curds and fresh lemonade! The fair starts on Aug 27, which is Tom's 28th birthday. I got him a Jack Daniels glass set. He's already seen it, but you better believe I'm wrapping it up and making him open it anyway!

Housewarming party

We had our housewarming party yesterday! I finally feel like I can breathe and relax! This summer has been sooo stressful. (Totally worth it though!) We started by getting our first puppy, then buying a house 6 days later, then moving, painting the whole house, starting a kitchen renovation, and lately cleaning & getting ready for our party. Now we can relax and just focus on finishing our kitchen!

The weather changed last minute and called for rain. Boo! It was cloudy all day and was sprinkling on & off all day. Which of course made it not a whole lot to play any games, and made my hair a frizzy mess! It started pouring rain around 6:30 which was okay since the party only went until 7 anyway.

Of course, we had TONS of food, beer, & drinks. I think it turned out really well.We got a decent crowd considering the weather sucked. Here's Tom & I

My friend, Melanie. We were best friends when we were in 5-8th grade until her mom died of cancer and she moved. We were more like sisters. I'm so glad she could make it! We actually don't live that far away anymore and we vowed to take the time to see each other more. I love that girl an awful lot. :)

Here's Rex. He's festive with a smiley face balloon tied to his leash. (Yes, we made him wear that all day! Haha)

All in all, the party went very well. I don't feel like I got to visit with people enough though. We were so busy! We were either giving tours all day, or dealing with the food & drinks. I don't think I even got to talk to anyone more than 5 minutes each! I have no clue how we are going to mingle with everyone at our wedding--it was tough enough with 40 people at our own house!

Today was spent having a lazy Sunday. We ate junk food, watched tv, and did nothing all day. It was wonderful!

Main Floor: After

Here is the main floor: After. Obviously not everything is done yet. But we're getting there... and nothing new with the kitchen, still waiting on the cabinets to come in!

The guest room

The office: the vanity area (dark paneling= gone!)

The computer area (ugly curtains were left behind...we still need new ones!)

Master bedroom

Bathroom

Dining room (can't wait for that light to be GONE!)

Living Room (the fireplace actually looks better now. I spent over an hour cleaning the soot/dirt off it!)

Living Room

Amazing what a little bit of paint and some elbow grease can do!

Photo Tour Part: 1

I figured I should post some before pictures of our house. These were taken when we first got the house. We have done some major work to this house in the short month & a half we've had it so far! When we saw this house, we saw tons of potential. We just had to look through the outdated stuff first.

So I present to you: Casa D, the main floor. (we have a finished basement, laundry room, and another bathroom in the basement. That will be coming next...)

The front door is to the left. This is the fireplace in the living room. Notice the sweet lamp we also got in the deal? Oh, and how can you miss that monster of a mirror?!

The rest of the living room

The formal dining room. That UGLY light is going very, very soon!

Our backyard. This was the biggest yard we saw by far! Living in Minneapolis, big yards are hard to come by unless you go out into the 'burbs a little bit.

More backyard...

The 2 car garage & screen porch attached. We eat lots of dinners out here. LOVE it!

Front of our humble house.

You already know this is all torn down. But the kitchen before when you walk in the back door.

A view from the living room. The whole wall to the right is empty. They called it an "eat in kitchen" Since there is the formal dining room right off the kitchen, we are adding much needed counter space/more cabinets there instead.

Ah, the office/vanity area. This paneling is (was) so awful!

More paneling, because I know you like to look at it. ;)

The guest room/future nursery!

The teeny tiny master bedroom.

The other side of the master

The small/totally outdated bathroom. :(

And just for fun, here's a picture of Tom, his brother, & dad. Yup, pure vodka with a tiny splash of juice in that big red cup. And I'm not even kidding. It is 3/4 full of pure vodka...I watched him make it!

And baby Rex hanging outside with us at night. (Yes, he's so spoiled he gets to lay in his dog bed outside instead of in the dirt. sigh)

And there you have it... a quick "before" tour of the main floor. Hopefully our "after" pictures will show you the potential this place had!