Cook Shmook

So I have been traveling (and lazy) and haven't exactly made anything new or notable. However according to my phone I've been eating and taking photos of miscellaneous things, like how a storm took the stucco (how do you spell that? I think i've been using the 'student council' abbreviation since junior high.. hmmm) off the back of my parents house. That stuff is supposed to be bullet proof!

John in his own beginner cooking adventures, decide to substitute plain macaroni noodles when the recipe called for rice (or so he thought)... When he wondered why there was no flavor, it was because the recipe was actually using the ingredient below. Cooking Fail.

I sent my sister a picture of this dress to confirm if it had her stamp of approval. Too bad when I actually wore it my strapless bra was ever shifting towards the visible center and kind of ruined the effect of looking nice/classy. Underwear Fail.

Bret and John had birthdays YAY 29!

The Royals haven't been doing so hot, but the weather was fabulous at the game and the beer was cold. No fail in my opinon.

I made a trip back to my alma matter for giving out an alumni scholarship, and I got to see my godfather and my favorite furniture store ever!

Alisa was hands down the classiest, most sophisticated girl in her entire school's prom. Obviously I'm biased, but some of the others have visible underwear lines and so much tacky bling it would blind elton John. She was in brown strapless with some silver sequin pattern. Take my word for it, beauteous!

I also saw my BFF from high school..... in all her glory.

Got some MONSTER bananas from sam's club.

And went to Baltimore for work. I sat outside staring at the harbor at sunset at M&S Grill, and my life was complete! Holy scallops in butter!

The strawberry/spinach salad had nuts with some sort of SPICY seasoning. Yummy flavor combo. I nixed the red onions though, bleh)

The waiter talked me into the tiny dessert which happened to be a miniature version of McCormick's chocolate box. I died and went to heaven. Best decision I ever made.

While working, I had some of the food that was provided. This particular conference was environmentally friendly and therefore had organic and healthy food AWESOME! Below is some sort of roast beef on polenta, grilled vegetables, and chicken/bruschetta. Yum.

We went out one night and had steamed muscles.

Not those muscles. Oh brother.

We sampled the local beer (the brother, above, is a pseudo local there). It was he kind of beer that had riddles in the cap..... we couldn't get any of them. Clever fail.

On my way out of town I got a tuna steak at the airport. EPIC Fail for every reason you can imagine.

The high school graduate, looking aloof and disiniterested. Good preparation for college and her early twenties.

The parents had 50 people in town for my sister's graduation (sorry no crowd pictures, I didn't steal any photos from Dad's camera like I usually do). Food aunt Anne prepared some YUMMY meals! P.S. that Sam's club chipotle slaw is phenomenal. I'm bringing that the next time I go anywhere and plan to claim all creative rights to it.

Aunt Theresa made her fabulous and creative cookies... matching all of Alisa's activities. FFA, FCCLA, lifeguarding, pigs (eye roll), Relay for Life, and other delicous additions. It pays to stay in school.

I was waving all of my Alisa flair, cheering, and attempting a photo with no zoom. She's the tiny one on stage in white.

And last and definitely least... the photo I sent to my sister yesterday as she had her first day of interning in my brother's office in DC, and I was attempting to recap to her the terrible acting/singing happening at the LLanview Prom over my lunch break (that's One life to Live for those of you without Soapnet or with lives).

Leaving for Los Angeles in T minus 4 hours!

Surely there's a country song for that...

You know, for getting kicked out of a Michael Jackson concert? Greetings peeps, this past weekend's adventures were courtesy of the mile high city, Denver CO.

Which is where one of my college besties (several favorite former Missourians live there, actually) resides. Emily and I flew out for the weekend to see her spanking new condo, celebrate her new found homeownership and party like it was 1999 (or more specifically 2005)

After a long day of pooltime, BBQs and other shenanigans, we went to a wine bar and had TAPAS (yesssssss!)

And then went got some PRETTY SWEET TICKETS.

At the end of the concert and we had been boozing ALL. DAY. LONG. We had smuggled our cameras in via the crotch of Kelly’s gay BFF (love him!!) p.s. they were searching purses for cameras, but we took a cab there, what were we supposed to do with them?. So I decided to take a picture of the venue for, you know, the blog….

And after one not-so-worth-it picture of the speaker in front of me and this dude's head, some large-and-in-charge butch looking lady grabs me by the elbow. And well...

Before I could pepper her with comments like ‘isn’t Portia derossi cute?’ and ‘those bugle boy shorts really make your calves look great’ …. I was outside. It was over before it started. I was making friends outside, but my friends came out to get me anyway (aren't they wonderful?). So I didn't get a picture, and I certainly wasn't wearing my specs (which means that anything over 10 feet away might have 15 noses or none at all, but not like I can see)... but I have it on good authority that the lead singer resembled this...

LUCKILY for … well… everyone involved, there was a fun bar/pizza place next door. I am proud to say I converted a table of people to pineapple pizza. It was my everything.

The morning after all of this ridiculousness, I got a craving for Ceasar salad like you wouldn't believe. I decided I would try to remake me own version this week. I discovered that regular Ceasar dressing has anchovies, but what am I..... Heathcliff? Yuck.

I found an eating well recipe with pureed cottage cheese, garlic, yogurt, parm, white wine vinegar, and worcheseterslekjrelk sauce.

The results? I got to use my cuisinart mini prep.. YAY how i've missed it!

I even took some WW bread and removed almost all of it's healthiness by dousing it with butter/oil/garlic. AND WHOAH WAS IT STRONG. I think I warded off plenty of vampires. It was probably strong enough to repel anyone who has even read twilight.

I had it with shrimpies and ...... meh. I was proud of it. And I ate it happily and cheerfully, but i still would've prefered to get a gooey, crusty (effortless on my part) restaurant salad. Applebee's anyone?

John was coming over later, and I was out of shrimp anyway so I threw together an egg salad salad. I actually learned out to make hard-boiled eggs via the better homes and gardens cookbook method (as opposed to haphazardly boiling them and inadvertently leaving a thousand tiny egg shell pieces all over the kitchen/world) I was proud of myself. Plus I subbed half mayo for yogurt, making myself EXTRA proud.

Then I took a photo montage of a Diane VonFurstenburg dress I got on ebay (slightly damaged) that I LOVED but when I got it in it was an old lady fabric in a WAY brighter color than I thought it would be (in real life it's brightest halloween orange). So I was taking photos to send to the former roomie fashion consultant who lives with her closet far far away in California. So, thoughts?

Happy Thursday friends!