Thanksgiving surprise

There was nice surprise on our front porch yesterday. Fiona had sent us a Thanksgiving snacky gift Box filled with yummy cheeses and sausages from Hickory Farms!
Thanks Fio!

What's in my burger?

I had an interesting discovery today. Yesterday we went to Sonics and I ordered two Sonic burgers because I had a "buy one get one free" coupon. I couldn't eat them both yesterday so I took one to work today. After reheating it, I took a bite and discovered that it tasted much better than the one I had yesterday. I had bought two identical burgers so it didn't make sense that one would taste better than the other, especially not a leftover burger! I took another bite and discovered an egg neatly placed between the bun and the burger.
I know I was crappy and probably hallucinative last night after slogging 12 hours away at work but I was pretty sure there was NO egg in my burger yesterday. And Sonic do not put a fried egg in their burgers. Now how in the world did I get one in mine?

So I called the husband and told him about my interesting find. And he said he had sneaked that in my burger this morning.

Phew, so atleast I am not hallucinating and am not going mad (yet)

Ouch my brains are bursting

Another loooong busy day. Just spent 12 hours working for a stupid deadline tomorrow. I have a feeling all that information will not be used anyway and I have just wasted my time, drained my brain and put myself in a crappy mood for nothing.
Bosses just want to see that it looks good on paper. Bleh.

Monopoly

It's been probably 10 years or more since I last played Monopoly. It was my favorite boardgame when I was a young teenager and my cousins, Daniel & Gabriel and I would spend hours playing this game. Sometimes we would bend the rules a little so that the game would last even longer. We'd keep "separate bank accounts" and allow players to owe each other money to stretch the game to days or even weeks.

Tonight, we finally got together with Brian and Sophie for a game night. We decided to play Monopoly for a change. And boy do I miss this game. I've never played the American version. Just always the British version. I like it just the same.
I almost won but lost to Brian in the end. We decided to count our monetary value and call it a night because it was close to midnite.

T'was a fun night. Oh, and Elise entertained us with some song and dance. That was too cute!!

Happy Halloween

Some pictures from my office today.




First prize - Hillary Clinton






The wicked witch who won 2nd prize.



Publications department.



Our department which was turned into a haunted house. It's actually pitch black with glow-in-the dark spiderwebs.



If you want to see what I looked like, click here. (The husband did my hair and eyes) I was the Guardian of the Haunted House.

Spooked up Thursday

I usually abhor going into the office on Thursdays but today was unusually pleasant. Infact, I have to admit that it was even fun.

The Halloween committee has organized a Halloween Spooktacular Extravanganza. What does that mean? It means there are contests and contests and more...
Best costume, best Halloween decorated department/cubicle.. etc... The prize? Winners gets a "leave work at 3 o'clock" pass.
And my department has decided to go all out for it! I mean.. seriously.. ALL. Out.
We have transformed our entire section of 6 cubicles into a haunted cave. Ceilings and windows were draped with black plastic table cloth, and the sides of the cubicles were made to look like a wall of glow-in-the-dark ghosts using screen-setting wallpaper. There is a huge black spiderweb at the end of the hallway with purple lights, and spiders hanging from the ceiling. Cubicles and my fake plant will be covered in glow-in-the-dark spiderwebs. We made a special door to the entrance to our cave. It is totally dark inside.
My scandinavian colleague will be in-charge of legally downloading some spooky music.

I know we are so going to win this.
I may have to go into the office next Wednesday afterall! If I do, I'll bring Jason's gargoyles to guard our entrance, and I am thinking of bringing some dry ice.

But I need a costume now. I know the other two girls are going all out with their $100 + costumes.
My sweet husband came home from work today with a witches hat, white hair spray and a black cape without making a huge dent in our wallets.
Once again, he reads my mind.

Renaissance fair

Here are some photos from the Renaissance Faire last weekend. I won't blog about it since Jason already did.



Click on it for captions and a bigger view

Pink on Purpose

Our company has a sanctioned charity event this week to raise funds and awareness for the Breast Cancer Awareness month. The "Pink" committee decided we should have a Bake Sale in the lobby of our building and asked for volunteers to take on various roles for the success of this event.

I could not decide whether to volunteer to make posters, tent signs, pack the bake goods or do the lapel ribbons. So I ended up contributing to the Bake Goods pile.
This weekend, I obsessively made over two hundred cookies. Again, I made the same mistake of being overzealous and attempted to make something that I have not tried before. I saw the recipe for peanut butter pinwheel cookies and I wanted to substitute the chocolate in the recipe for something pink. So I melted some pink wafer candy, spread it as a second layer and attempted to roll the pastry to make the pinwheel effect. BUT the candy hardened before I could roll the dough and it made the outer layer fall to pieces. The result.. you guessed it... I created some really artsy fartsy pinwheels instead. I had seriously thought of just going ahead and submitting them to the Pink committee at work. But I decided not to. Some people are scared of artsy fartsy things. They were really delicious tho. Jason and I both ate probably more than twenty cookies in one day.

Plan B.. I used a different recipe that called for cream cheese instead. The pinwheels looked slightly better but they were still not all identical. Won't work.

So Plan C... I used the same recipe, but instead of making pinwheels, I just rolled them out and drew a pink ribbon using the same melted pink candy. Boring but safe.
But me being me, I had to do something else to zest it up. So I printed some pink ribbons on a card, cut it up and tied a ribbon to each cookie bag.

300 cookies later and sore feet and a sore back, and a tummy full of discarded cookies that did not pass the QA test, I finally sent an email to the Pink committee informing them I'll contribute 40 cookie bags (80 cookies)

Ok, I am going to sleep now.


*Update :
The Pink Committee Head asked me where I bought these cookies. I said "my kitchen" :) .They loved it and want to do the same for all the other baked goods.
I've just emailed her the template of the cardboard label topper and I volunteered to go shopping to buy a few hundreds of these plastic bags for the event.
Feels good to have a purpose! I think I'm going into business some day! :)

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