adventures in grocery shopping

May already?!?     I haven't forgotten about this little blog of mine, just haven't felt like getting on the computer at night after being on it at work all day and haven't felt like writing anything.  I did have something happen this weekend that I decided was blog-worthy :)

When I was in line at the grocery store I suddenly felt something wet splatter on me - seemed like it fell on me and I could not figure out where it came from.  It had gotten my checker and the person in the aisle next to me too.. turns out it was a beer can that got a hole in it in the checkout aisle next to me (learned a valuable lesson: don't pack the conveyer belt too tight, things get smashed when it funnels to the checker and that smashing is what caused the can to burst).   I fared better than my checker - she had to clean it out of her ear....it was truly terrible beer too, Old Milwaukee I think.  Poor checker was going to smell like it all day....I got to head home from there so it was just a funny story for me.

It was the oddest thing to happen to me at the store in a while but not the oddest thing ever.  I've actually had to have an incident report completed at a store before when I slipped and fell on spilled laundry detergent (looking at you Wal-Mart) .  I can laugh about it now - including the misspellings on the incident report, but that day it really hurt and left a mark on my leg, no good since I had a wedding to attend later that same day....

What is the craziest thing that has happened to you at the store?

Do you want to see something really funny?  The local weatherman got the hiccups on live tv.  Kevin saw it live, I didn't even think to look for it online (of COURSE its online), thanks to my brother for sending to me!

http://www.khou.com/entertainment/Meteorologist-David-Paul-gets-the-hiccups-on-air-205310971.html

K kept saying that other news sites would pick it up and sure enough, today he sent me a CNN link to the video. 

Poor David Paul.  He actually kept his composure and tried to get through his segment really well....I'm sure I wouldn't...I hate the hiccups.

New Friend

Kevin made a new friend today - a parakeet showed up in our yard! Thankfully Smokey was inside the house when the bird showed up.

Its very domesticated and a 'people-bird' because it came right up to Kevin and wanted to go into the house.

We'll have to try to track down the owners, but for now we have a bird at the house, and lucky for me - a lady at work has a cage that I can borrow and since she has parakeets she's able to tell me exactly what we need to feed it and keep it healthy until we can find the owners..

A neighbor told Kevin he should tell me its a St Patrick's day gift, it is green, and pretty cute.

More evidence of how special our dog really is

This morning I let Smokey out, and noticed he was striping (fur on his back standing on end) and growling, I looked around and all I could see that it could possibly be was (scary music): two large mushrooms in our yard. My reaction to the mushrooms was - hoorah! our yard is wet enough to have mushrooms - it has been a hot and dry summer so far He was eyeing them and wouldn't leave the patio. After a while of this I had the thought that maybe there was something scarier in the yard, he can't really be leery of mushrooms. I go outside looking for something, anything (I have read reports of more snakes in yards trying to find water), but nope, its the mushrooms. They weren't there last night so they are new and not to be trusted. While I was out there, he finally got really brave and sniffed one of them (then finally did his business), but he was still not very happy about them being there.

I left him outside to finish getting ready for work, come back and he's laying down (at a safe distance) looking right at them......oh, so special..anything new or different, he is not a fan of....

Kitchen misadventures

Other people have cooking blogs, I'd like to have one but I'm afraid my kitchen misadventures are often more memorable then my cooking successes. On Friday, I was going to make a roasted chicken for dinner, it takes longer to make then most of our week night dinners, but since I took the day off I could do it. So I prepped the chicken - took out the 'giblets' and rinsed it out, chopped up garlic, and put garlic/rosemary/lemon juice combo between the chicken meat and the skin, and put half a lemon inside the chicken. We've made it once before and it was so good, so I was excited to make something good (and healthy) for me and my hubby. I put it in the oven. Over an hour later I went to see how it was doing, and the oven wasn't on! Turns out when I was trying to set the timer on the oven and mistyped in how long I wanted and hit cancel on the timer I'd actually hit cancel on the oven, so the oven turned OFF, and the chicken had in fact been sitting there in a cooling off and then cold oven. I was so mad at myself! This is beyond blonde moment, I feel truly dumb when I do something like that...why didn't I notice that it wasn't hot or just make sure the red light was still on after having problems with the timer??

At that point we were too hungry to wait (and not sure that it was safe to eat since it had sat at room temperature for over an hour), so instead of my yummy chicken, we had a last minute change to pizza :(. I'll try again next weekend and we have yet another inside joke, remember the chicken will be talked about for years.

Take a Hike Ike

I saw that phrase on a picture on the news, related to Hurricane Ike. Someone had written it on the boards they'd used to board up their windows.

We got back from Nicaragua on Saturday. I plan to write about our trip (and post pictures!), but haven't had time yet. I spent most of the weekend getting caught up with all the stuff I needed to before heading back to work on Monday. Work is getting busier too since we're getting into the fall reporting crazy time.

We started watching Hurricane Ike while in Nicaragua and are keeping a close eye on it since it is headed towards the Texas coast. It is expected to make landfall early Saturday morning and could be a bad storm. We've got supplies and will just ride it out here at home. Its scary watching them showing a storm predicted to hit pretty close to my parents' house.

I feel better now, I was finally able to get hold of my brother - my parents, brother, and his wife are still in Nicaragua are scheduled to come back on Sunday. I'd sent a couple of emails about Ike and haven't heard from them at all. I felt like Chicken Little and a flip-flopper -- its coming towards us, no maybe Corpus, oh no us again. I tried calling them yesterday without success. Tonight I was successful. Luckily they are staying at the same hotel we stayed at, so I knew the hotel's name to find their phone number online. I wanted to make sure they are aware of it. There isn't anything they can do from there, but being aware of it they can be informed and make a decision if they need to adjust their travel plans. As of now they still plan to come back on Sunday, but they are well aware of it. Something funny - one of the first news stations they found to watch is a Florida station, so all their newscast would say is that Ike is headed away from them and nothing more, leaving my parents to be like -- where is it going??

EDIT (addition): I saw last night that all of Brazoria county is under a mandatory evacuation! Hard to believe, coastal areas makes sense but just a few miles away from me is Pearland, and its included too. The university where I work is still open, so I'll be on the road with them I'm afraid.
(addition 9/12): Kevin told me that later they exempted Pearland from the mandatory evacuation, makes more sense.

White Water Rafting

Today we drove out to Idaho Springs (west of Denver) to go white water rafting. It was exhilarating! We saw some beautiful scenery on the way out there and we know we'll see much more of the snow-capped mountains this week.

In the higher elevation, it was chillier than in Denver, so we took advantage of the equipment they provided - wetsuits, windbreakers, and rented booties to wear to keep our feet warm (not dry, but warm). We would've frozen in what we'd brought - swimsuits, sandals, and cotton clothes. We both had the thought that we'd gotten in over our head as they were explaining technique and what we'd be expected to do, but we went ahead and had a great time. The other people in our raft were also from Texas (and our guide's name was Austin - coincidence, yes), and the guy in front with Kevin was a character - his comments kept us laughing -- talking about his 3 knees (right, left, and wee-knee), and how cold he was, and that the wetsuit needed drainholes in certain unmentionable areas. The water was FREEZING -- 38 degrees, and it was snow the day before! We all got soaked, but Kevin especially since he was in the front. None of us fell out of the raft, and we didn't get stuck on rocks - we saw one group that did, and it didn't look fun at all. We are absolute beginners, and I think that's all I'll ever be.

We're taking it easy the rest of today. Rafting left us both pretty tired and we were out late last night in LoDo (lower Downtown) with Sharon and some people she knows. There is a movie theatre right by the hotel, so we walked over to watch a movie, The Strangers (Kevin's pick), I watched it all but wanted to cover my eyes sometimes, it was so scary!

Tonight we'll take advantage of the hot tub at the hotel.

funny story -- last night Kevin wanted to listen to "Rocky Mountain High" by John Denver since we're in Colorado. I didn't put it on the mp3 player in our GPS, so we thought we'd look for it on a radio station, and we found it! Then it came on again, and again....we checked the station again this morning and we think that's all that station plays! Rocky Mountain High 24/7.