Olympics What?

Dear work, husband, dog, 'Edward', laundry, sleep, loved ones I should be calling on the phone and catching up with, workouts, dishes, and blogs that I stalk on a daily basis:

I promise to return to you all just as soon as the Olympics are over.  But until then, I am using my new HD antenna to watch the Olympics (in HD! for free! bitches!).  During this time I will probably be screaming, yelling at the TV, waking up J (on accident), drinking a beer, and commentating Curling with the TV on mute (because if you've done it on a Friday night with friends, you know how entertaining it can be!).

I will be back soon though with the full ferocity, wildness, bloodthirstiness (seriously, it was listed as a synonym!), turbulence, and barbaric splendor (I can't make this stuff up people!) as when I left you.  Except for maybe the laundry and dishes...  And the bloggers that I stalk will really never know I left them!  ...And I was never all that 'ferocious' with my workouts anyways.  Well, and really there's no 'splendor' in my job(s)!  Sleep...ah-ha!...yes, you - sweet glorious sleep!  I rock at that (just ask J!  Tonight we talked about how if it were an Olympic sport I'd have the upper hand fo' shiz!) and will never let you down again...at least not for another 4 years!

All Things ♥'ed On Valentine's Day

♥ Karma Ale : 'Good beer happens to good people'

♥ Taking care of my sweet (sick) valentine and loving him even more

♥ The old fashioned valentine I scored for J that let him know how 'swell' he was

♥ Homemade Bierock Casserole

♥ Winter Olympics on TV ***

♥ Creme Brulee**

♥ Our sweet puppy doggy curled in a cuddly ball

♥ Hot rice bags on our feet

♥ Chamomile tea

♥ Lazy winter day on the couch watching movies

♥ Yawwwn...going to bed early; loving my life

*** Might I just add that I am watching the Olympics in HD on my $38 HD Antenna without any cable installed in our house!!!  I freaking LOVE it!  We have all the major networks and like 5 PBS stations to boot!  Seriously people...$38.00 freaking dollars!  Go buy yourself one right now, cancel your cable subscription, and thank me later!

** It's been a Vday tradition to make Creme Brulee for J every year.  However, it must be the fact that he's ill that caused it to flop on me this year.  Or the fact I made it with only about half the actual ingredients the recipe called for...and I was drinking...and a few ingredients may have been dumped in the wrong bowl and cooked when they weren't supposed to.  They are in the trash now!  Karma: Good Brulee Does Not Happen to Good People!

Go Girl!

Okay, so I am not one of those people to support random products via my blog...unless of your course your name starts with an 'A' and rhymes with 'mazon'!  (I heart you Amazon!)  However, I must post this product that I ran into over at Divine Caroline because A) This is the most amazing thing ever and B) Any of you who know me well would know that I NEED this!

It's called the Go Girl and looks like this:

Below are the details from Divine Caroline:

Female Urinary Device

I might not want to be a man, but sometimes when I'm faced with dirty, disgusting, or worse, non-existent, toilets, I think it'd be handy to be able to pee like one! You Go Girl is a feminine urination device/pink silicone cup-and-spout thingamajig that you place against your body (forming a seal), and then ... well, you just aim and pee! No crouching or balancing required. It fits easily in your purse, pocket, or glove compartment, and you can dispose after use or clean and reuse.

$9.99

go-girl.com

So now that you all know I want one of these, you might already be assuming my issues with copping a squat.  It started out one day on a family road trip to go visit Big Brutus when I was like six and I had to go pee while on a hike in the woods.  My mom peed first to show me how it works and then helped position me in the correct 'cop-a-squat' stance.  I remember holding onto her (probably mistake #1) and asking her if I looked good to go.  She hesitated (mistake #2), but said yes (mistake #3)...and then I pissed all over myself...and my pants...and my underwear...and my socks...and my shoes.  We ditched the undies and socks in the woods and I rode home damp and smelling my pee.  I've been scarred ever since then.  The few feeble attempts I've only recently starting making at getting this cop-a-squat thing down resulted in a need to walk like a mile into the woods in hopes that no one would catch a glimpse of my insaneness.  Because once I pick a location, I then take off one shoe, pull my leg out of my pants and undies, toss them over to one side, throw my shoe aside so I don't pee on it, and then do my thing.  Now, I have yet to get any on me or my clothes, but as you can see, it's quite time consuming and embarrassing as hell.  I just get so panicky and sweaty when I find myself in a situation that I know will eventually involve peeing outside...which is often since we like to camp and drink!  Oh, what I would give for a Go Girl in these situations!  Hell, I'd probably flaunt it as if I had a boy part!  I could just see myself keeping the Go Girl in my undies with the little pink tip hanging out of my zipper...oh man!!!...I could go in the woods Whenever.I.Wanted!  Plus, if I had one of these, I could officially have a 'collection' of portable restroom devices since I already have a fold-able camping toilet: (Thanks mom for always trying so hard to get your little girl peein' in the woods!)
                                                            
                                                           

Game On!

What a fabulous Saturday!  Do you ever have one of those Saturdays that you wake up early...naturally..feeling well rested and ready to go?  I did today...and that doesn't happen often!  I love me some sleepy time!  We've already 'been to town', shopped, and now I'm getting ready for the K-State vs. KU game:

Drink in hand: Check

Fresh strawberries, mangoes, and pineapple cut up and chilled: Check

Fresh veggies and homemade veggie dip made: Check

*Chicken legs thawing for homemade buffalo 'wings': Check

Homemade Deer Summer Sausage: Check

Sliced PepperJack chee' and crackers: Check

Homemade Bleu Chee sauce for 'wings': Check

**Fresh 'baked' No-Bake Cookies: Check

Dusted, sweeped, vacuumed, clean-clean house: Check

Laundry done: Check

Dishes done: Check

***K-State shirt and hoodie on: Check

Rockin' out to Dave Matthews: Check

****Cable to watch the game on:...SHIT!!!!  I knew I forgot something!

* I realize you can't call them 'chicken wings' technically when you are using legs to make them...but 1) Small town grocery stores don't sell wings and 2) Legs are OMG better and less mess for more meat!

** I also realize that if a cookie is called 'No-Bake' that you can't necessarily bake it.  But I like that it makes me sound like I worked harder in the kitchen to make them...even though it's really probably the easiest cookie in the world to make...unless you're my mom!  Much love mom, but they never set up really!  (And I gave half of them to our neighbor and wrote on the bag: 'Thank You Sidewalk Snow Remover!' since he always takes his fancy snow blower machine to our sidewalks also...much love!)

*** Yes, I admit it...I'm one of those that sports K-State gear even though I didn't graduate from there.  But, in my defense, purple is my favorite color, Claflin's mascot happens to be the Power Cat with the same school colors,  and it's just not the same to get all amped up over a Friends University game.

**** Oh, and we don't have cable.  We moved here, had cable...for free.  (I guess they forget to disconnect it when the last peeps moved out.)  So really smart me says: 'I know, I'll disconnect the cable cord from the TV and then call and get Internet for us and it'll be like 2 for the price of 1!  As soon as 'Mr. Internet Man' leaves, I'll plug the cable cord back in and he'll never know!'...and right now you all are like: 'Brilliant!'.  Except I didn't realize that 'Mr. Internet Man' was also called 'Mr. Cable Man' and apparently has 'Magic Tools' to tell if we are getting free cable.  Uh, needless to say 'Mr. Husband Man' was not thrilled with 'Mrs. Dumbass Me' and ever since we have successfully lived off DVD's and Hulu.com and life is great!  So take that...Damn the (cable)Man!

Happy Birthday My Love!

I would just like to take a minute to say, 'Happy Birthday' to my wonderful husband today!  He is a great son, brother, grandson, nephew, uncle, great nephew, cousin (I think I covered them all...oh, and add 'in-law' as well to all those!), and friend , but most importantly he is the greatest at being:

 my BEST FRIEND and HUSBAND!!!

So here's to the man I married on the 4th of July, who wakes me with kisses every morning (no matter how grouchy I am), who laughs with me (and sometimes at me...but in a good way!), who is a great chef, my #1 supporter of all my ideas (dumb or not!), who can hang with my family almost better than I can, who let's the dog out at night when it's cold, and who has the best heart, smile, and laugh (and big brown eyes) that constantly keeps me going!  Thank you 'Pete' and I love you!

Here are some pics from the bday celebration in KC this past weekend:

Here's our fun dinner group: J and I, My sis and bro-in-law, and Trafton and Kerrie.

Thanks to all for the great dinner and company!

My sis and bro-in-law at the restaurant.  We ate at Blue Koi in KC.  If you ever get the chance to eat there, you must!!!

Terrible, I know!  It's the only one that I apparently got of us though during the entire night!

After dinner we went to The Jazz for some beer, 'bugs, and live jazz music!

It was a wonderful evening!!!

Happy Birthday to the man who is 13 months younger than me (and by no means does that round up to 2 years!).

Sayonara Parasites

Adios amigos!  Arrivederci dudes!  Au revoir gentlemen!  Cheerio & good-day!  Tah-Tah creeps!

My new found friends!

So I just finished day 3 of what I like to call my 'Anti-Parasite Pack'.  Now I know what you're thinking right about now, 'What is she smoking!?!?'  Well, I'll try not to go into detail about some 'issues' I've been having over the last two years...but they have recently caused the doctor's decision for me to get a colonoscopy.  After having discussed some of the 'issues', my doctor asked if I'd traveled out of the country recently.  'No.  Well, we went to Costa Rica like two and a half years ago...but that was forever ago!'  Then it occurred to us both how long I'd been having some of my 'issues'.  


For anyone out there who may be fearful of having to gt a colonoscopy...you really shouldn't be!  I was more afraid of the anesthesia than anything else...mostly because I have a friend who lost her cat due to the fact that they had put it under with anesthesia for a simple, routine, procedure!  I know, I know, it was a cat and I'm not...but I'm sure that could happen to humans too!  I remembered nothing, I had no ill side effects afterwards (minus the fact I was starving!!!), and life was good.  Afterwards the doctor said:  'Everything looked just fine.  I didn't find any polyps.  I did do a washing while we were in there for you and took samples to send off to the lab'.  My first thought: 'Rock on!  A free colonic to boot!'  


Well, Mr. Doctorman called two days later and told me that my results came back from the lab and I tested positive for two parasites that are most commonly found in contaminated drinking water.  Who'd-uh-thunk-it!  He said that one of them is hardly ever heard of being found in the US.  I only drank bottled water in Costa Rica, but we ate at lots of restaurants...so who knows what they served to us for 'water'!  So, I had to take some medicine for three days and that was that!  You could imagine the jokes though!  Saturday we had a 'Going Away Party' for them...okay not really, but we went out with friends and drank so I called it that in my head.  J banned me from the hot tub because he was afraid he would get them! Really?  Come on now!  Anytime I was in a cranky mood this week I blamed it on the pissed off parasites in me slowly losing the battle!  Ha!  I could go on...but you get the jist!


I don't really feel all that different!  I'm not 100% convinced that this was the fix of all fixes, but it's a good start!  2010 is the year of Kristy's Health!  I will be heeeeeeealed! (said in thick southern preacher accent!).  I hope to get this all cleared up and solved this year so that we can work on more fun things...like making babies!!!! 

Cutey Puh-Tootie!

Once again I am a day late with a birthday posting, but at my rate I suppose it could be a lot worse!

Anywho, my fave nephew in AZ turned the big 2 yesterday and so in honor of the growing young man...(how sad...he's almost no longer a baby...more like toddler!) I found as many pics of him as I could from our wedding!  Which by the way, he was a ring bearer in the wedding along with my other nephew who is a good three months older.  My niece was the flower girl and is four.  Kai was the only one of them to actually walk down the aisle by himself without throwing a tantrum, getting a case of stage fright, and having a 'stomp, stomp, throw yourself down on the ground' fit!  So to that little man - 'KUDOS!'...and thanks for being so damn cute!!! Also realize this is the last birthday of the rest of your life that you'll get all the attention.  It's all down hill once baby Mia comes along...of course minus the showering of spoiling you'll continually get from Uncle J & Aunt K!

Okay, well we don't have one of Kai actually going down the aisle...probably because he was just that good! But here is proof of the tantrum (hence dad holding the flower girl) and stage fright.

Thanks to my brother-in-law / flower girl / 'co'-ring bearer

Ha!  He normally doesn't have that look on his face in pics!

Hmmm...there it is again...

Could possibly be a variation of 'the look'?....

This one makes me laugh every time I see it!  He LOVES him some cake and ice cream with dad!

100% Hammin' it up!

So serious!  It's like he's saying, 'Don't even get between me and this golf cart lady!'

Oh man, I need more dad!  Can't...get...enough!!!

Okay, well I said I'd post every picture of him I had...he's in there...near the upper left.

So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the cutest, smartest, most handsome little boy there is!!!

Much Love

Aunt Kristy!

SCHMAPPLES!!!

Note: I'll get to the title name in due time!

Okay, so this post is beyond a little old...but it should get me caught up to the present up until the holidays!  I dumped all my pictures off my camera and went, 'Yikes!  I'm am uber behind here!'...so here are a few trips down memory lane over the past months and some fun stories to go with it!

For starters:  Here is our first snow that allowed me to go home early!  It's not that great of a picture, but that's the point I suppose.  Since then, we've had windchills in the -20's.  With that being said, I would like to say, 'Thank You!' to all the nice friendly motorists that waved at me as they plowed past me on the highway...I never knew there were so many one fingered people in this town?

Okay!  Well then, since we are rewinding, the next post I missed would have been Halloween. (Due to the economy, the Turkey Day post got cut this year!)

One joke I've had since we moved here was how we needed a 'Rupe Rock'!  You know what I'm talking about, every house in this town has one.  The limestone post/rock that has the family's last name etched in it and proudly displayed in the front lawn.  I will assume this is the reason we never got a welcoming committee, or a homemade pie delivered to us...everyone just assumed we already knew them because all you have to do is read their rocks!  It's a genius idea really, if you think about it!  Well, since we don't have one yet...because of course I refuse to pay money for one and really think that making my own would 'rock'!  (Tee hee!)...I made a temporary one for the season:

I called them our 'Rupe-o-lanterns' and proudly displayed them in the window for all to see!

This is my friendly, cackling witch!

And also my friendly jack-o-'lantern' lights!

The highlight I have from Halloween night is finding out the reason that we only had 10 trick-or-treaters as opposed to the 80-100 our neighbors had.  It was because the former tenants' of our house never 'hung around for very long'.  (Insert note: As in they were huge druggies!)  One little girl informed me that her friend had a cousin that lived here and that 'her mommy and daddy were really dirty!'  She peeked in and then said, 'Wow!  You have a beautiful dining room miss!  It's prettier than ours even!'  I proceeded to find out that high schoolers once rented it for a bit...real smart right?  And the last occupants couldn't afford the gas bill so they heated attempted to heat the house with the stove in the kitchen!  Niiiiice!  Oh you just wait until next year all you princesses and goblins!  Every kid in the neighborhood will want to come to our house...you just wait and see!

Moving right along and getting to the title of this post!  I have a list of all the bijillion things I want to explore in my new town and the area's around it and finally got a chance to one weekend in the fall.  We first went to Cain City Orchard in Bushton, KS!  Love, Love, Love this place and want this to be my future some day!

This is the cute little house that they sell homemade jams, jellies, and some produce from!

These are the fabulous apples we picked!

That bag is an 'official' apple-pickers bag that goes around your chest kinda like a backwards backpack!  I refused the offer of it from the nice man because I didn't wanna run around looking all dumb...and later discovered that perhaps I should have taken it.  My scrawny canvas bag got full, heavy, and annoying QUICKLY!

Ah!  'True Love Self-Portrait'  (Can't you just feel my happiness in this pic!)

Ginormous apple orchard!

Once you pick your hear out of apples (15 pounds to be exact!) you take them into this cute little shed where they dump them in this polisher to make your apples shiny and pretty!

You can also pay a $1.00 to shoot old apples that have fallen on the ground from a slingshot!

If only you could have seen the look on my face when I found out about this!

Conversation:

(Me reading a sign in the shed: 'Apple Shooting: 6 for $1.00' and having already eyed the slingshot and bull's eye...knew exactly what they were talking about!)

Me: OMG...can I do that J...please, please, please!

J: (Not having noticed the slingshot or the bull's eye and literally thinking they meant allowing me a real gun to shoot up apples with.)  Uh, no.

Me: Oh come on...it's not like we'll be back this year!  Let loose and have some good ol' fashioned fun for once!

J: We don't have time!

Me: Yeah we do!  (I then promptly bought one bucket of apples with a huge grin on my face!)

I got pretty close with my second apple.  Then I decided that since I was having so much fun, I should let J in on it (since now he has figured out they didn't mean apple 'shooting').  He didn't seem amused and I think was really just humoring me more than anything.  Until...

Check out that look on his face!  He was so getting into it!  Best quote of the day from him at the orchard:

'Man,  I could so sit here and do this all day while drinking some beers!'

Needless to say it was 'little kid' fun and those times are the best!

After that, we headed over to Dozier Winery to sample some of their homemade wines!

This is the sampling room / gift shop / old train depot!

This is inside the old train depot and the 'Santa Fe' sign up top is the original one!

This is another original 'Santa Fe' sign for the depot and was taken from the gift shop side.  The window there is the window where passengers would buy their tickets.

Mmmmm!  These are all the wines we sampled!  The one on the end is a Jalapeno Wine that they created for cooking / marinades...they had us sample just a swig...and yes...it was definitely made with peppers!!!

After all our sampling and purchasing of Sandhill Plum Wine and Concord Grape Wine (tasted just like grape jelly...so much so that I went home, made a peanut butter sandwich, and dipped it in a glass of the wine...shhh...don't tell anyone!) we decided to go for a stroll thru their forest!  How beautiful it was with the pretty leaves, a nice buzz (as noted in my smile!), my lovely man, and a perfectly crisp autumn day!

Well, that should get me caught up to December...and I might just skip right over that and move on to 2010!

Oh crap...SCHMAPPLES!...I forgot to get to that.  Well, needless to say we were getting pretty creative with our 15 pounds of apples.  We used a lot of them for making homemade wine (which we finally finished up last weekend!).  We then decided to slice a lot of them up in rings and throw 'em in the dehydrator.  Oh YUM!  The result was a crisp apple chip almost!  I got so excited and crazed over them, I started calling them 'schmapples' except I would say it in a loud, high pitched voice over and over and over like the big dork I am!  And so then every time I saw an apple...I started calling them schmapples...then J picked up on it...and now all apples in our house are 'scccchhhhhmapples!'  There you have it!

Honey Moon Part One

Since it's been almost 6 months since the wedding...I thought it's about time to get off my kiester and post some pics!  So this post is one of a lot to come from our honeymoon in Yellowstone.  One might be thinking, 'I haven't seen the wedding pics yet though?'...and that one might be correct.  But, A) That would require me getting out of the recliner of warmth right now and B) I figure I should post these pics before I break the laptop and we loose them forever.  (Similar to the broken hard drive we have right now with the last 6 years of pictures possibly lost forever...sigh!)  These were chosen in no random order and we have about 400 pictures of our honeymoon....so here is PART ONE:

Words cannot even BEGIN to describe the beauty, peace, and calm here!

We drove all day and all night to try and get to the Park for our reservations the next day.  We got so tired that we found a random campsite in the Grand Tetons at like midnight, leaned the seats back in the 4Runner, and just crashed...and this is the awesome view we woke up to the next morning...it's views like this that don't require coffee in the mornings to get going!

We went White Water Rafting, not our most 'intense' one yet, but we had a real dickhead in our raft which really got to me...I would have taken Class 5 Rapids over this guy!  The pics that the company takes were $35 a piece so this picture serves as our 'souvenir'.

NEAT!  Grand Tetons!

KS representing at Yellowstone with the Sunflower!

One of maybe 5 self portraits from the whole trip...which is odd because I LOVE self portraits and J is usually very good at taking them!

I think this was Day 1 Campsite...where our neighbors on each side of us had kids that were dropping food left and right and the people in front of us already had the Park Patrol on their site to lock up food they left out in the 'Bear Bins'...You either have to store it in your car or under lock in a big metal container.  I was convinced we'd get eaten alive thanks to our idiot neighbors (more pics to come on bear sightings!).

Words cannot explain the Geothermal Features either!  The more blue'ish green they are the hotter they are!  And let's not forget the LOVELY smell of rotten eggs everywhere you went from all the sulfur...gag!

We figured out the timer on our camera!  Woo Hoo!  (Disclaimer: Yes of course I look like crap...but we like to see how many days we can go before breaking down and showering...I think our max is 4 and this trip hit 3!)  If that sounds odd or gross to you...you don't know what 'roughin' it' means man!

This one looks neat in the picture, but sadly enough it's that yellow color because of abuse.  People think it's 'cool' to toss trash and such into those to see what will happen and it destroys and deteriorates the feature...hence all the yellow!

Once again...speechless...but just so cool!

So those are round one and I'll be sure and get the rest up sooner than later!  And for those of you contemplating driving across the whole state of Wyoming to get to Yellowstone...be sure and set your cruise to 'FAST'...there is NOTHING in Southern Wyoming...I mean nothing at all!!!  The only story out of that part of the state was the lady at the gas station who told me about this cat that ate a rabbit that had some deadly disease and bit one of the employees there.  They took pictures of her hand where she was bitten and had them posted all over the counter warning people of the disease and to stay away from rabbits!  The pictures were non-recognizable body parts that were rotting away from this disease.  Famous quote from that conversation (which ended rather quickly and abruptly):

Gas Station Lady: 'Yep!  Best rabbit I ever saw is a dead one...buried 6 feet under ground..those bastards!'
(My apologies for any spelling errors..it's late, I'm tired, and ever since I uploaded the new Blogger I don't have a spellcheck button anymore!)