My life expectancy

What's yours?

Case of the disappearing engagement ring

No, not mine since I don't have one. One of the boys best friends recently got engaged. We will refer to the newly engaged couple as Choco and Cheena. Here's some background on their relationship. They live together and have (what I'd consider)somewhat of a rocky relationship. They are fighting/bickering constantly. They both get jealous easily and they keep each other on very very short leashes. They are probably the most co-dependant couple I know. Because of all this, Choco has had his reservations about getting married. He's always complaining to the boy about how Cheena gets "crazy" when they fight and that she is spoiled and lazy. He wants her to change before he marries her *cough* yeah right *cough*. Choco bought a ring for Cheena awhile ago and Cheena was aware of this. Choco finally gave her the ring for Christmas, but she's supposed to not wear it. It's like a "secret engagement." The other night the boy was with Choco, Cheena and some other friends and Cheena was wearing the ring. One of their friends said congratulations to them and Choco just brushed it off. Yesterday was the first time I've seen Choco or Cheena since they got "engaged." I was excited to get to see her ring, but she wasn't wearing it! I didn't want to ask about it because I know it's kinda sorta a secret and they don't want a lot of people knowing. I suspect that she purposely didn't wear the ring in front of me because Choco probably didn't want me seeing it and asking quetions. Is this not the strangest engagement ever? If I was Cheena, I'd be a little upset. I wouldn't want to hide my engagement. She should be able to proudly wear her ring and share the good news with everyone she knows. I love Cheena and think she's a really great and fun girl, but I don't know if these two should be getting married . . . at least not yet.

Three day weekend . . .

but not for me.

Boo: I have work on Saturday :( My weekend will only be two days.
Yay: All is not lost. Saturday should only be a half day with me heading home by 3:30. The boy will be coming down to hang out with me this weekend. He has a big test to take Friday and Saturday will be his first worry free day in months. He's taking the first part of his medical board exams, which he's been studying for for months.

Yay: The Chargers have won TWO playoff games this year.
Boo: They play the undefeated Patriots next. LT, Rivers, and Gates are still hurt.

Yay: I'm having dinner with my friend H on Saturday night in downtown.
Boo: She's bringing her boyfriend, Fisher, with her. Not that I don't like the guy, he's just not very much fun to be around. He's hard to talk to and doesn't engage in conversation, so it makes me uncomfortable. She's been dating this guy for over a year and I still don't feel like I know him. Maybe it's just a little hard to get him out of his shell, but come on - talk already! I'll ask him a question and he'll reply with the shortest answer possible and then that's it. He doesn't ever talk unless you talk directly to him, otherwise he just sits there quietly. It's just weird to me that I hardly know one of my best friends boyfriends. Especially since we live in the same city. It'd be one thing if they lived out of state or even in another city, but they don't.

Yay: I have tomorrow off!
Boo: I have to pick my parents up at 8am! They are coming home from a 5 day cruise. AND I have 3 chapters to read for my advertising class I'm taking.

BOO: I have to get back to work now.
Yay: There is no yay response to having to do actual work now.

Happy happy joy joy!

My Chargers won! Without LT nonetheless! Well, he played for the first 2 quarters and then was out due to a knee injury. QB Rivers sat out the entire fourth quarter because of an injury too. The rest of the team really stepped it up during their absence. It was SUCH an exciting game! I think my voice is a bit hoarse now from all the yelling. I don't think I've been so nervous watching a game before.

I feel kinda bad for Peyton Manning. He's such a great player and he seems like such a good guy. Today's loss must be hard on him. Next week the Chargers face the Patriots. This game will be much harder, for sure.

Goooooooooo Chargers!

I forgot to mention in my earlier posts how happy I am that the Chargers won their last game! The Chargers haven't won a playoff game in over 10 years. The last playoff game they won was back in 1995, the year they went to the Superbowl. This year, the streak is over! They won against the Titan's last Sunday and face the Colts next. Let's hope they can make it to the Superbowl again this year.



This time around they have LT. Hopefully he can help bring San Diego a Superbowl win.

Very late Christmas update

Awhile back I had promised an update of my Christmas festivities. Due to my recent sickness, I have yet to blog about it. Here it goes. I got a bunch of great presents. I got a couple of dvds, gift cards to sephora and coffee bean, Kiehls products, ca$h, and the following:

Speakers for my ipod


Dolce & Gabbana Parfum - The One



8 inch Digital Frame



Christmas Eve with the fam was great. All my aunts, uncles and cousins were there and let me tell you there are A LOT of us. There was lots of good food such as lobster, prime rib, mashed potatoes, cheesecake, and more. Christmas songs were sung. Family board games were played. Good conversation was had. Ever since we were kids, one of our dads would dress up as Santa Claus and pass out the presents. Now that we are older and there are a new set of young kids around the dad's have passed on the tradtion to our male cousins. This year, the boy got roped into playing Santa. He was such a good sport about it, made me fall in love with him all over again (I know, I know, cheesey). Christmas Day my family gathered at my aunt's house for more food and family time. Overall, it was a wonderful holiday season and I'm sad it's gone. Only 11 more months until the next one!

Come out, come out, wherever you are

So it's de-lurking week. On the off chance that I have any lurkers, please make your self known please and thank you. I have de-lurked on a few blogs I read. That is all for now. Good night.

Wedding Fever

I'm at that age where everyone I know seems to be getting married. This past wedding season my sister and 4 other couples I know got hitched. So far, next summer 4 couples I know will be getting married. I found out about one of the weddings yesterday. It got me to thinking of when it'll be my turn. Hopefully, it won't be too far from now. Ideally, I'd like to be married at or by 30. That means I have to be engaged within 2 years, which really means I'd need to be engaged within one year so that I'd have one year to plan the wedding. This is just my ideal timeline. The actual timeline will probably be about one year off, meaning I'll be married at 31. Not too bad, but I'd still prefer to be married by 30. I know 30 is by no means old, but I'd like to get married sooner rather than later. Why the rush? I don't know really. Part of me thinks that I just want to get to plan a wedding where I get to wear a pretty white dress.

Target After Chirstmas

I love Target and I love getting good deals on things, combine the two and I'm one happy camper. Because I had work (BOO!), I didn't get a chance to go to Target the day after Christmas, so I missed out on some items that go fast such as hand soaps and dishwashing soap that have Christmas themed packaging that are normally half off. I did get some great gift wrap, boxes, and bags at 50% off. I went back a few days later to check out the 75% off stuff and I was able to score some more bags and boxes. Yesterday I was at Target again. This time I was there to buy non-Christmas items such as shampoo and bar soap. I decided to check out the Christmas stuff to see if I could scrounge up one or two items that were marked at 90% off. Unfortuantely for me, there was nothing left but bags of bows and some really ugly christmas tree skirts. There were a few bags and boxes, but those were damaged. On my way to check out, I passed by the stationary section. Since I like to make my own greeting cards, I decided to check it out. I scored a few super cute christmas items that were 90% off. Yay!


I got all of this for $1.15. Retail price would've been $11.82. Go me!

TV guilty pleasures

cue music. "I don't need to be anything other than a prison guard's son
I don't need to be anything other than a specialist's son" I love hearing that song. When I hear that music blaring from my television set, I know one of my guilty pleasures is back. One Tree Hill - I love it. I've been hooked since the beginnging. Cute guys playing basketball, high school drama, girls being bitchy - count me in. The new season of One Tree Hill is back and I'm so excited. I can't wait to find out what Lucas, Brooke, Nathan, and Peyton have been up to.


Another one of my television guily pleasures is yet another high school kid drama, Gossip Girl. I don't know what it is about these shows high school drama shows, but they draw me in. (although, technically the oth crew are now out of high school and 21 years old).
For Gossip Girl, one of its main draws for me is all the pretty pretty clothes they wear. Also, I think that kid that plays Dan is cute.



I'll be a craddle robber for him any day :)

What does one do at 4 am?

It's almost 4 am and I'm wide awake. What to do? What to do? There's nothing good on tv this early in the morning. I've watched all the shows I have saved on tivo. I'm all caught up on celebrity gossip. Sigh. Tomorrow is gonna suck.

Update:
I finally feel asleep around 5 am and I woke up at 7:30. Surprisingly, today doesn't suck as much as expected.

Happy New Years!

Happy new year, everyone! I hope everyone is feeling better than I am at the moment. I've been feeling sick since Saturday - boo! I was hoping it was just a cold, but it turned out to be the flu. Monday was the worst. Something must be going around. So many of my family and friends are sick right now too. Get your flu shots everyone! I'm going back to bed :(

Holiday Baking

This year, I've been so busy. I had hoped to get a lot of baking done for the holidays, but sadly I did not. Christmas kinda snuck up on me this year. I did some baking though. On Christmas Day my sister and I made Cranberry Bliss Bars a la Starbucks (even though I'm not a big fan of Starbucks, but that's another post). They are SOOOO good. They were quick and easy to make too. Gotta love it. Here's a picture. Please excuse the poor quality. It's from my camera phone.



Here's the recipe I found from Recipezaar:

1½ hours 40 min prep
Cake
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups light brown sugar, packed
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla or orange extract
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup diced dried cranberries
6 ounces white chocolate, cut into chunks
Frosting
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
4 teaspoons lemon juice or 2 teaspoons orange extract
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup diced dried cranberries
Drizzled Icing
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk
2 teaspoons vegetable shortening
orange zest, garnish (optional)
Not the one? See other Cranberry Bliss Bars Recipes
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Beat butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer until smooth. Add eggs, vanilla, ginger, and salt; beat well.
Gradually mix in flour until smooth.
Mix 3/4 cup diced dried cranberries and white chocolate into the batter by hand.
Pour batter into a well-greased 9x13-inch baking pan and spread evenly.
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until cake is light brown on the edges.
Let cool.
Frosting: combine cream cheese, powdered sugar, lemon juice and vanilla with an electric mixer until smooth.
When the cake has cooled, spread frosting over the top of cake.
Sprinkle top with diced cranberries.
Icing: Whisk powdered sugar, milk, and shortening.
Drizzle icing over cranberries in a sweeping motion or use a pastry bag with a fine tip.
Allow cake to sit for several hours, then slice the cake lengthwise (the long way) through the middle.
Slice the cake across the width three times making a total of eight rectangular slices.
Slice each of those rectangles diagonally creating 16 triangular slices.

Gotta love on-line shopping

This year, I did some of my Christmas shopping online. I like to do this for a few reasons:

1. I don't have to fight the crowds
2. I can shop whenver I like and in my pajamas no less!
3. Sometimes it can be cheaper to buy things online than in the stores.

Whenever I buy stuff on-line I always do some research first. I will look for coupon codes and I also use Mr. Rebates. I LOVE Mr. Rebates. With this website, you can get a certain percent cash back on your purchases at various online stores such as Nordstrom, Sephora, and even the itunes store. Granted, sometimes the cashback is only 1% of your purchase, but this adds up. Especially if you are going to make these purchases anyways, you might as well use Mr. Rebates. This past Christmas I got back a total of $46.75! How can you not love that?

ps
I'll blog about my Christmas festivities within the next few days. My camera is broken, so I have to try and get some pics from my cousins.

Quick present buying vent, er, I mean update

Remember my friend, H? The one that constantly makes me buy and return her presents. As I said before, this year she asked for a really good hair dryer for Christmas. I had no intention of buying it for her. I just planned on giving her the cash for it so that she could go buy it herself. I did not want a repeat of Christmases past. The past two Christmases I have purchased and then had to return her present because she changed her mind. This year I knew better and boy was I right. Two days after she told me she wanted a hair dryer she texted me and told me she changed her mind and didn't want it anymore. She no longer knew what she wanted. Annoying as all hell, isnt' it?

Merry Christmas!

I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. My family starts celebrating tonight. We 're going to mass at 6pm and then heading over to my parents house for dinner and presents. All of my cousins, aunts, uncles will be there. The festivities continue tomorrow morning at my aunt's house. I can't wait! I love my family and I look forward to fun times tonight. Be safe everyone and have fun! I'll try to post some pictures on Wednesday

Christmas bells are ringing

I did some more Christmas shopping today. I was out for four hours today - whew! AND I only got presents for 2 people. AND I'm not even done shopping for these two people. Here's what I got:

Carry on luggage for the boy, except in black. We're going to Vegas this weekend so I'll be giving it to him tomorrow. He's been wanting a new carry-on luggage with the spinner wheels for awhile now. I was in Macy's and saw it on sale so I scooped it up for him.



I bought a bunch of orange ginger products at the Bath and Body Works outlet for my friend H, the same friend that I blogged about before (asks for a specific item and then makes me return it later). I got hand lotion, body wash, shampoo and conditioner. I'm going to put it all in a little basket and give her money. She said she wanted a nice hair dryer, but I'm just going to give her the money and she can buy it herself. Last year she asked for a hair straightener. I bought her one, she tried it and she didn't like it so she asked me to return it and just give her the cash. This year I don't want to have to deal with the hassle if she wants to return the hair dryer.

There were A LOT of people at the mall today. Even at 10 am it was crowded, which surprised me. The next chance I have to go shopping is Thursday. Wish me luck!

Weekend Wrap-up

My weekend was a mix up of boring and fun. Here it goes.

Friday:
Came home from work. Cooked bistro style short ribs with a recipe from Tyler Florence of the Food Network. It was my first time making it. I really liked it. It's definately something I'll be making again. After dinner, I took my accounting final. I take the class online and I have to say, accounting is really hard to learn on your own. I did better on the final than I thought I had expected, so that was nice. I ended up getting a B in the class. Yay me!

Saturday:
Woke up and then ran errands in the morning. I went to Ralphs to buy some groceries, Kohl's to make use of the 15% friends and family coupon, and then to the bank. The boy and his family came down Saturday evening. They came down in their van to help some family members move some items. I decided to cook dinner for them since the boy is always telling them how I cook all the time and that I cook well. Plus, they always take me out to eat and I thought this would be a nice way to return the favor. I'm always a little afraid to cook for people the first time. What if they don't like my food? Then I'd feel bad because they might feel obligated to finish the food on their plate even though they may potentially hate it. Because of this fear of mine of cooking for people for the first time, I wanted to cook something that I've made for lots of people and that they have all liked. I decided to cook lasagna and banana pudding, both made completely from scratch and both have been enjoyed by many people in the past. Guaranteed winner, right? Wrong. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and even had seconds . . . except for the boys mom. She had her one piece of lasagna on her plate forever. Everyone was already on their second piece and she still had most of her first piece on her plate and she would put the tiniest piece of food on her fork when she would eat it. The only thing she said about dinner was that the salad was good. The salad that came from a bag! I was a little disappointed and a little bit embarassed that she didn't like it. Then I served my home made pudding and she had one bite and that was it. Again, everyone else had 2 servings each. I really don't understand why his mom didn't like my cooking. She doesn't cook so they eat all of their meals out. Mostly they eat at places like Sizzler, Burger King, Coco's, Olive Garden, etc. Now, don't get me wrong, there is nothing bad about those places, but they aren't the best most flavorful places in the world. I figured, if she loves Coco's so much, my food had to at least be as good as that.

Sunday:
Sunday was a very estrogen charged day - MUCH better than Saturday. Woke up early and got my hair cut and highlighted. I love my hair the day I get it cut because my stylist does such a great job of cutting it and blows out my hair for me. Every time I get my hair cut, I get a compliment on it. At least one person, if not more, will come up to me and say what a great hair cut I have. I'm not trying to be vain or anything. I take none of the credit for how good my hair looks. That all goes to Trevor, my stylist. I can never make my hair look that good on my own so they day I get it cut is my best hair day. Went to lunch at a nearby thai place with my sister and my friend H. Then we went on a shopping marathon. We went to Nordstrom rack and Off Fifth. We were on our way to Fashion Valley mall and made a quick pit stop at Coffee Bean to refuel then it was time for more shopping. We all went back to my place to eat left-over lasagna and watched a movie on On Demand. Lucky for me, I have Monday off too. I'll blog about that tonight or tomorrow.

Cute picture of the day

My cousin had a baby a month ago today. I saw her for the very first time today. Here's a picture of her sleeping.



Sooooo cute! As cute as babies are though, I am SO not ready to have one of my own. I do want to have kids though. 3 would be nice. 2 boys and one girl. I'd really like to have 2 of each though, but kids are so darn expensive. Especially girls. They just suck all the money right out of you. I should know. I did that to my parents. My clothes closet thanks them.

Argh!!!!!!

I just went got back from Bed Bath and Beyond. The charging station I was planning on buying the boy is nowhere to be found. I wanted to buy it in store so that I could use the 20% off one item coupon (yes, I'm that cheap - a couple of dollars here and there makes a difference). Since I couldn't find it in the store I figured I'd buy it online, but its out of stock! Now what do I do?