The weekend

Saturday was spent over at Jason's parents'. The guys installed and put up a utility shed in the backyard. Pretty neat. We brought two dozen donuts over. Donuts are always a good source of energy and packed with nutrition :) After a couple of donuts, the nephews were running wild. Such fun watching them.

Sunday, James called up and we met up for lunch. He was in town for a race. We met at Tin Tin Buffet and stuffed ourselves. That place is always so good.
Skipped dinner, but had room for ice cream.

Weekends are always too short!

Blowing in the wind

The weather is starting to warm up and I'm looking forward to spring. Sunshine and flowers and warm weather is much needed to drive away the doldrums.

Everyone in my department wanted to go out for lunch today. Some of us rode in my boss' car and she had the top to her convertible down. Despite what you see in movies, your hair will NOT blow in one direction in a convertible. Aside from being unattractive, hair whipping in your face can be painful.
I wonder if there's such thing as a "convertible proof" hairspray. I was also paranoid that a bird would shit on me. Nevertheless, it was a cool ride.

But the Mexican food we had for lunch... well, that wasn't so cool. It's just funny why they even bother putting pictures of each item in their menu. Every dish looked the same. Meat, beans, rice and cheese in one mushy pile.

It's all about food again

Took Fiona and James to the Chinese restaurant at the Asian Mall for some Dim Sum. On weekends, they have carts of Dim Sum going around the tables and you can just pick your choice. We all stuffed ourselves. Yumm!!

Then we took a drive to North Davidson (NODA) and walked around and checked out some of the artsy stores. Stopped at Smelly Cat cafe for some frappes, coffee and smoothies.

For dinner, we rode the LYNX to uptown Charlotte and had some Irish food at Ri Ra's. Jason and I shared the Boxty Shepherd's pie which was some crepe + Shepherd's pie and long beans. The chips and curry was also pretty good. We cleaned our plates and proceeded upstairs for some live music but we left shortly after. I think we were all tired out.

Happy Easter

It's been awhile since I made something for the neighbors. So since it's Easter, I thought it'd be a good time to give everyone something. I made some Pecan cupcakes and decorated them with carrots. The carrots were molded out of Starburst fruit chews (featured in last month's Woman's Day magazine). I got tired of "making" so many carrots so Jason came up with his brilliant idea of using white chocolate bits and mixing colors and turning them into carrots. I now have a lot of extra chocolate carrots. Anyone care for some?


And I just finished making a Easter Brownie cake for the Easter brunch on Sunday.

Cherokee

Friday evening we drove up to Cherokee, stopping by Harold's at Gaffney, SC for dinner. Harold's was featured on the Food network recently, famous for its sloppy burgers and hotdogs and fatbacks. Food was really sloppy and cheap. We took home some of the fatbacks and used it for the Fried Kuay Teow :)

After passing Maggie Valley, the fog came down and visibility was reduced to almost zero. Driving up the curves and bends to the mountain was a nightmarish experience. Poor Jason. Glad we took his stable truck and glad that having a GPS helped ! We arrived around 10.30pm and James met us at the cabin.
Somehow, we found the energy to get out and head on to the casino and got back around 1am. (We all lost some money)

Saturday morning was beautiful and relaxing on the rocking chair on the back porch overlooking the river was a peaceful retreat. (ahh vacation..). Then we made Roti Canai for breakfast. (Best part of staying in a cabin is that we get to cook!). It started raining and rain it did ALL Saturday. We drove 30 miles to the Tennessee border but the rain kinda ruined the view of the Smoky mountains, so we drove home to the cabin and just wasted the Saturday away.

We made one more trip to the casino (lost a bit more money) and came back to our cabin to play some games. That was "funner" than losing money.Early Sunday morning, it was time to head on home. We all drove down to Maggie Valley for some good ol' country breakfast at Country Vittles and James and Fiona left us and made their way to SC.

Jason and I spent the rest of Sunday afternoon at the in-law's watching the basketball game and we met up with Ronald and Tammie later before they headed back to Chapel Hill.

The day off

This afternoon, Fiona and I went to the Dollar Movie and watched No Country for Old Man. It is strange that a slow and boring movie like that can keep you glued to the screen for two hours, making it not so boring after all. The cat-and-mouse action was entertaining, yet some of the scenes do not make sense.
And I was not too happy with the ending.

Since Krispy Kreme was just next door to the cinema, we now have a dozen donuts sitting in our kitchen :)

Freebies

Jason and I took the Light Rail into uptown today to the Charlotte Convention Center. There was a Rite Aid Health and Beauty Expo. They had free coupons and samples of popular products found in Rite Aid stores, and the opportunity to see on stage and get autographs from celebrities like the Carolina Panthers’ DeAngelo Williams, Alison Sweeney from “The Biggest Loser” and “Days of Our Lives,” Tae Bo creator Billy Blanks, and Cameron Mathison from Dancing with the Stars fame and "All My Children" amongst others.
Dora and Curious George was walking around and kids were just rushing up to get pictures taken with them.

I was impressed with all the stuff that they were giving away for nothing. I felt like I was trick-or-treating on Halloween.
Here's some of the loot we brought home.


And ofcourse, Cameron Mathison was hot!


But I was really impressed that the husband was so willing and patient and game for this ordeal that I had put him through.

You know...

It was all good until I had to listen to this guy on the phone. He sits in the cubicle behind me and he's loud so I could not help but listen and grind my teeth.

*you know* I'm calling *you know* about *you know*... bla bla..*you know*. We *you know* understand. If *you know* like the presentation, we'll *you know*, take the next *you know* flight out. This is *you know* a great opportunity *you know*...etc..etc...

He had atleast 100 *you knows* in that 15 minute call.

Sold!

Today, I had my first customer!
Sold 2 potholders + 1 dishcloth! Whoopee!!!
The shipping cost did not quite add up right, so I will end up forking out more for postage :( Oh well...
I've fixed it tho.
I'm so happy!! *I'm doing the tootsie-roll*