Guilty Pleasures

In no particular order:

1. High School Musical Movies


















2. Advice Columns like Dear Abby















3. Blog Stalking

4. Avril Lavigne


















5. Drama- which is why I love TV

6. Britney Spears

David After Dentist

This clip was on The Soup this morning. It is so funny.
Afterwards Joel McHale said "Laugh now. That kid is on his way to becoming the greatest Olympic swimmers of all time."

Two Loves Collide

I love the show Dirty Jobs. I also love shrimp. I think my love of one my have tainted the love of the other.

On Dirty Jobs this morning, Mike Rowe harvested shrimp. I had always wondered what a real shrimp looked like, but I never looked. What I didn't know couldn't hurt me. But this morning Mike had a full shrimp and squeezed the head off of it.

Here is what they look like:
Kind of disgusting, right? This picture will give Chris a better reason to avoid seafood.

However, then I see a picture of coconut shrimp, and I think I can ignore the fact that my food used to have little legs and log whisker thingys.

Card Making

I have gotten on a card-making kick. There is a website www.etsy.com where people can sell their homemade stuff. Chris found it and said that I could do it, so I made some cards and posted them tonight. We'll see if anything happens.

Here are two of the cards I posted.

My Etsy website is randiraquel.etsy.com

Andes Mint Brownies

Chris and I got Andes mints in our stockings this Christmas. Because I am not eating candy I wanted to get rid of them in the form of Andes Mint Brownies. I was just going to add them to a boxed brownie recipe, but I decided to make them from scratch. It was my first time making brownies from scratch and I thought they were pretty good. I took them to work and one person actually fished for every crumb in the Tupperware.
Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

* 1 cup butter
* 2 cups sugar (white)
* 4 eggs
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 1 cup all purpose flour
* ½ cup cocoa
* ½ teaspoon salt
* about 1/4 cup (or however much you please, really) of chopped Andes mints
* An additional package of whole Andes mints

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 9 x 13 pan. Melt butter in saucepan over low heat. Once melted remove from heat and add sugar, vanilla, and eggs. Blend together. In separate bowl, mix together flour, cocoa, and salt. Add dry mixture to the wet and mix well. Add chopped Andes mints to the mix. Pour into greased pan and add some more chopped Andes mints to the top. Bake for 35-40 minutes.

One Income Home

Chris put in his two weeks notice at work last week. He is taking 18 credits and has a lot of outside projects to work on and we decided we could afford him quitting to focus on school.

We have both worked at the same place since we got married. It has been wonderful and will probably be the last time it happens. First he was my boss and then I was his boss and then HR decided that wasn't supposed to happen and he was moved off my team. But I still got to see him during the day and even talk to him on Chatzilla to let my frustration out.

At least he understands what SecurityMetrics is and what it does so that when I come home and talk about work, he'll know exactly what I am talking about without a lot of background.

He only has until December left and then who knows what we will be doing. We are basically open to going anywhere as long as we have a job.

Inkheart

I just finished this book. I saw the preview of the movie, and it looked interesting. On the book jacket, it says that Cornelia Funke is the third most popular author in Germany, after J.K. Rowling and some other guy. I figured it had to be somewhat good.

I thought the story was interesting, but the book was too long. Not that I don't like long books, but there seemed to be too much fluff in the story. I skipped a lot of pages and still understood the story and didn't feel like I had missed anything.

Basically, I did like it, but I wouldn't need to read it again. There was not a storyline that was very deep, but I guess I should not expect much from a book I found in the junior section of the library.

Superbowl Commercials

The Superbowl hasn't even aired yet, but when I saw this commercial the other night I laughed out loud.

Finally

It almost didn't happen. We went to the BYU bookstore and they said they were out. Out of the Macbook that I wanted. How is that possible? The bookstore employee checked the computer and found that a shipment had arrived today and was sitting in receiving. He almost wasn't going to get it. There were a lot of ifs involved. I knew if I didn't get it tonight, I just might cry.

But there was no need for tears. I have my Macbook. I am typing on it right now. I got the student discount and didn't have to buy apply care. I am so excited. Now I just need get Photoshop Elements and I will never need to buy anything ever again.

Twice Denied

Chris decided that I could get a Macbook for my graduation gift. I had debated back and forth on whether I needed one. I knew that I wanted one but I feel guilty if we spend that much money. I needed to justify purchasing one in some way.

To get around that guilty feeling, I told Chris that he had to surprise me with Mac so I couldn't change my mind. But we wanted to buy the Mac with my credit card since it has rewards so I had to be there to purchase it.

Today, I finally got over the guilty feeling and decided that I wanted a Mac. So after work Chris and I drove to the UVU bookstore only to remember that it is Martin Luther King, Jr Day so it is closed.

I was devastated. I finally got over that feeling and it was a sign that I shouldn't get the Mac.

Then about 20 minutes later, we decided to try the Simply Mac store in Orem. Chris called and asked if they give the student discount and they do, so we headed over there.

The guy came over. I said "I want this computer." He asked if we were using a student discount we said yes. He asked if we were buying apple care, we said no. Then he said "I can't sell you this Mac using the student discount without the apple care."

What the Heck? The student discount is$100, the apple care is $180. Why would I use a discount just to end up paying $80 more?

I should have pushed more, but I just said I would buy it somewhere else and we walked out. Now the guilty feeling is back and I am going to have to get over it.

Here is a picture of what I could by typing on right now. Sad.