Brewers, Sushi, Museums--DC!

It's been crazy lately, but I'm finally finding the time to write about our Washington, DC trip. We went last weekend for about 3 days and I got a chance to complete a few things on my list!

First off, I completed half of #21: See the Brewers play in two other stadiums. We specifically went to DC this weekend to see them play there! We almost didn't get to see them play, as we only had tickets to the Saturday night game, and there as an hour and a half rain delay. But they ended up playing after all. And they won! I can't remember the score, but all you need to know is that they won. yay!

Here we are with the Presidents. :)

Next, I also completed #39: Eat Sushi again. We had sushi while we were in DC. It was good. However, it could've been a cause to Josh's recent gall bladder/stomach problems that ended him up in the hospital. Sooo, maybe it wasn't that good.

Yummmm.

Lastly, we went to a few museums while we were there, which completes #3: Go to a Musum with Josh. It's so nice that all the museums are free of charge. It makes it easier to see more of them! We went to the Smithsonian Museum of Air and Space...or something like that. The National Gallery of Art. And also the Holocaust Museum. My favorite might've been the Holocaust. It's unreal the stuff we saw in there.

Here's Josh in the Air and Space Museum.

I've decided not to count this trip as our 'anniversary trip' like I was going to. While we did plan it to kind of celebrate our anniversary, our anniversary was 4 months ago, which I think is too long to count this. But that's ok. I realize I'm not going to check off everything on my list. Stuff happens. :-)

In other news, I started Respiratory Therapy school this past week! I've only been to 2 classes, but I like it already!

Alllll about me!

I've been reading over my list of 101 things to see if I did anything recently that I could blog about. But, alas, I did not. At least nothing that would be interesting, unless you want me to tell you about my workout yesterday. :-) We are going to Washington, DC this coming weekend though, so I'm sure I'll have some fun stuff to tell you after that. But until that happens, I've got nothing.

So, to pass your time, since I know you just looove reading my blogs, I'll tell you some things about ME. 'Tis exciting. This went around facebook a little while ago, and I never did one. Until now.

25 Things About Me!

1. I have what is called Oral Allergy Syndrome. Yessss, mother I do have it. Taken from Wikipedia, OAS is a type of food allergy typified by a cluster of allergic reactions in the mouth in response to eating (usually fresh) fruits, nuts, and vegetables that typically develops in adult hay fever sufferers. So basically, this can often in occur with people who are also allergic to pollen, etc. Which I am. I started this when I was little. Eating fruit and some veggies would often cause my 'throat to itch'. Sometimes my lips would feel numb. My family just thought I was making up excuses to not have to eat fruit. It wasn't until I was in college that I found out that what I had actually had a name and it was in fact, an allergy! Apples are the worst for me. Along with cherries, raspberries, sometimes carrots, pears, etc.. I'm sure there's a lot more, but I just don't eat much fruit anymore to figure it out.

2. I'm very weird about sleeping. I LOVE to sleep, but I need to have the 'perfect' conditions to do so. It has to be completely dark and completely quiet. I sleep with ear plugs in every night just to make sure it is quiet. Even when I lived by myself, I'd sleep with ear plugs in, because the clock ticking or refridgerator running would bother me. When I was in high school, I'd make my parents turn down the t.v. in the living room to a volume so low they couldn't hear it; yet, I could hear it in my bedroom. Maybe I have super-ears that can hear noise when there's no noise at all.

3. I married Josh in April of 2008 and that was one of the best days of my life. We met at a Brewers game in 2005--at the birthday party of a mutual friend. The game was against the New York Mets. It was Ben Sheets Bobblehead Day. I barely remembered his name because him and just about all of his friends have names that start with 'J'. We talked over french fries at the Gyro place while everyone else went into the dance club next door. The whole time I thought he was already dating someone else because that someone else told me that they were dating. But they were not. I win. Twas fun. :-)

4. I love love love the Milwaukee Brewers. And not only for the cute players and all the players with the nice teeth. But I just love the game of baseball. I grew up with it. B.J. Surhoff was my first favorite player. I even invited him to my birthday party when I was little. He wrote me back and said he'd love to come, but they'd be out of town for a game that day. I actually believed that he would've come too. Even if we move out of Wisconsin some day, I'll always love my Brewers.

5. I also love love love squirrels. This love started in the first grade or so. My best friend, Marisa, and I would collect acorns for the squirrels so they wouldn't have to look so hard for some food for themselves. Ever since then, the squirrels have always loved me too, I'm sure. It sure helps that they're just so popular these days, that I can find anything with squirrels on it. I have a squirrel pillow, squirrel pajama pants, squirrel salt and pepper shakers. Josh loves it.

6. I had 6 wisdom teeth. I got them all removed on the same day. That was not fun. I like to think I'm a little more 'wise' for it.

7. Here is a list of foods I could live off of: cereal (any kind), candy (mostly any kind) and chips and dip. Maybe a margarita in there too.

8. I love to run, and work out in general. Josh and I usually go to the gym at least 4 days a week. We're currently doing a 5k training program to get faster times in 5k's. I also lift weights 3 days a week. It's fun. Really, it is!

9. I'm going back to school for Respiratory Therapy. My classes start in about a week and a half. I'm a little nervous for this new adventure, but mostly excited. It's a big change for me. I'm done with my job this week, which is a big change in itself. But it'll be good. I'm excited.

10. My best friend, Marisa, has been my best friend since the first grade. She used to think I was weird because I wore dresses to school a lot, but I know she was just jealous. She currently has a house with her husband that's just a few blocks from mine!

11. I am left-handed. I do everything left-handed except I use scissors with my right hand and I play tennis right handed. Let me tell you--that playing tennis right-handed when you're actually left-handed gives you a great back-hand!

12. I like dogs, but they all seem to hate me. I must give off a come-attack-me-vibe. Here's a funny story (although it may just be funny to me..) We were at a party in someone's backyard. It was a huge backyard with a big hill. There were a lot of people standing at the bottom of the hill. LOTS of people. We were just standing there talking to some friends, and the family's dog ran out into the backyard and ran down the hill. It dodged through people left and right--it ran through the whole group of people. Until it got to me. It ran towards me, jumped up on me almost knocking me over, and then dodged right back through the people back up the hill. I just don't get it.

13. I hate to say it--but I may possibly be starting to like kids a little more. Just a little more.

14. I hate showering. If I could get away with not showering every day, I would. It's a chore to me.

15. The one TV show I rearrange my night for: THE BIGGEST LOSER. I just love that show. Sometimes I would skip the gym just to stay home and watch it, which seems like just the opposite of what I should be doing when watching that show.

16. I love my family! Even though I don't live tooo close to any of them, they're always there for me when I neeeeed them.

17. Josh and I live in the smallest condo ever known. It's about 650 sq. ft. It's amazing we still get along. :) But I like how it forces us to spend time together every night, because we have no where else to go to get away for a minute.

18. I'm a big planner. I like to know what I'm doing next, big or small. Therefore, it's driving me crazy not know what my next job will be after this.

19. It kills me to be late for anything. I'd rather be an hour early, than a minute late!

20. I absolutely hate snow. Every winter I say that we should move to warmer state before the next winter. But we never do. Someday, we will. I don't think I can take this for the rest of my life.

21. I have never gotten a speeding ticket, broken a bone, or been stung by a bee. Maybe I'm too careful.

22. I'm not a big jewelry-wearer. I only wear my wedding rings. If it's a special occasion, I might put on some earrings. But that might be pushing it.

23. My favorite band of all time is Matchbox 20. I'm not too into music, but I did have all of their albums.

24. There was a period of time in high school when everything I said would be in Spanish. My parents probably hated it. If I didn't know a certain word in Spanish, I'd make it up. I didn't even have to think about it--someone would ask me a question or something and I'd just reply in Spanish. I kind of wish I still knew as many words as I did so I could start this back up again.

25. I believe in the power of prayer. It's amazing what it can do. God is good!

I was wrong :(

Looking back at a blog post I made on May 30th, I predicted that I would be done with the last 2 Twilight books by the end of July. Alas, it is August 7th, and I have just started the 4th book. I was wrong in my prediction, but it's been a busy summer! And I've been super tired lately, and just want to go to sleep instead of reading before bed. Now I'm hoping I can finish this 4th book before school starts in a few weeks, because then I definitely won't have as much time for it!

Only 2 more weeks until our weekend trip to DC to see the Brewers! yay!

Dirt Cake!

Getting my new recipe of the month out of the way early--I made Dirt Cake for Josh's birthday yesterday! We tried it last night, and it was good! Yay me.


Here's the recipe: (courtesy of my mother!)

1. Crush one large pack of oreo cookies in blender. Set aside.
2. Cream together: 1/2 stick margarine, 8 oz. softened cream cheese, and 1/2 cup powdered sugar.
3. In another bowl, mix well: 3 cups milk, 2 packages instant french vanilla pudding, 12 oz. cool whip
4. Combine #2 and #3 together and mix well.
5. In a plastic pot (8 inches or so) layer crushed oreo cookies and pudding mixture, ending with the cookies on top.
6. Put in gummy worms or gummy squirrels as you desire.


Side note: Cover the hole at the bottom of the pot with tin foil if there is a hole!


And here are my pictures:







And in a completely unrelated to anything note: Cake Boss is my new favorite show! :-)

My complaint for the day

This has nothing to do with my list, but I'm feeling very annoyed right now, so I thought I'd take the time to complain about it here, where probably no one cares but it makes me feel better anyway. I did just listen to one of those motivational speaker-life is awesome-people for a work event last week. And he did say something that I thought long and hard about before deciding to write my complaint in a blog. He said something along the lines (I can't remember the exact wording) that you shouldn't complain to other people because 80% of the people you're complaining to don't care, and the other 20% are happy that their life is better than yours. :-) Which I think is true. Sometimes when people complain to me, I can't help but think that I am soooo happy that I'm not going through that, or that didn't happen to me, etc. But obviously I didn't take all that much away from the motivational speaker, because I'm still going to complain about this:

Contacting your health insurance is probably the most annoying/troublesome/frustrating thing ever. Maybe not EVER, but pretty close to ever. All I wanted to do this morning was call my health insurance provider to make sure I did not need a referral to see a specialist doctor. I called the 800 number, and got an automated "person" at first. Which I expected. But here's what I don't understand--how in the world do they think it's better to have me 'say' my ID number and, and my name, and my date of birth, and everything else they want to know about me into the phone, so this automated "person" can try and decipher what I"m saying to transfer me to the right person. Personally, I think it'd be 100x more efficient to simply have to TYPE my ID number and date of birth and whatever information into the phone than try and say it in a way this automated system would understand. After 5, yes 5, tries, I finally got them to understand my birthdate. And after about 15 minutes of 'saying' everything they needed to know, I was transferred to an actual person, who just asked me these quetions again. Frustrating.

Anyway, now after all this has happened, I'm left wondering if I had just typed a zero into the phone right away, would I have just been trasferred to an actual person right away? No one answer that for me, because if that is true, I will probably become annoyed all over again. :-)

That is my complaint for the day. You can all go ahead now not caring or knowing that your life was better than mine for a half hour this morning. :)

Guacamole!! And a good run. :-)

I made my new recipe for the month thanks to my good friend, Sarah. (See previous blog...that's her). She's a great cook and gave me her recipe for guacamole. Usually I just buy guacamole, because let's face it...that's just easier. But I figured I could give it a shot. And it was easy. And very goooood.

Here's the recipe:

2 avocados
1/2 tomato, diced (the recipe actually calls for 1 roma tomato, but I'm not going to lie--I don't know what I roma tomato is.)
1/2 onion, diced
1 serrano pepper (when cut in half length-wise, remove half the seeds and membrane)
diced handful of cilantro (decorates the top of the guacamole when it's all mixed)
Course salt to taste (sea salt or kosher)

To prepare it, pretty much just mix everything and put the cilantro on top. :-)





Here is my picture of the ingredients:




And here is the finished product:




Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmm.



And then to work off allll the guacamole I ate on Saturday, I ran in my 3rd 5k of the summer on Sunday morning! This completes #68 for this year, anyway, of running 3 5k's a year. We still might do more, to get some more practice and try to improve our times, but at least I know that if I don't, I have satisfied this item for this year!

This race was for my work. My work is having it's big 'Annual Meeting' this week, where people from all over the country come to Milwaukee, where my company is headquartered. Every year there is a 5k/10k run, and this year, there were a record number of about 8200 people that signed up! That's a lot of people to try to dodge while you're running, so I tried to start in the front of the pack. And that strategy pretty much worked--I only had to dodge a few slow people in the beginning. And most importantly--I GOT MY BEST TIME EVER FOR A 5K! My official time was 23:32. Or a pace of 7:35 per mile. I was very very very very happy.

I started out doing realllly well--the first mile I ran in 7 minutes, the second mile I ran in 7:25, but that last mile was tough. The last quarter mile of the race is just about allll up hill. This is the 5th time I've run this race, so I should know that hill is coming in the end, but it still catches me by surprise and definitely slows me down. Oh well, I still got a good time, and am happy for that.

Here's my official time, thanks to http://www.onlineraceresults.com/, just in case you don't believe me. :-)


bib number: 1874
age: 26
gender: F
overall place: 188 out of 1498
division place: 6 out of 81
gender place: 19 out of 449
time: 23:32
pace: 7:35

Sometimes, I really can golf! And Wii disc golf..

I have completed #18: Visit Sarah and Scott in Sheboygan. Josh and I went up to Sheboygan this past weekend to see Sarah and Scott and their new house! And I just looove their house! Especially the kitchen. And given that Sarah is just about the best cook ever, she definitely deserves that kitchen. I met Sarah about 5-ish years ago when we both were interns for the same company. She also went to my same college and we also just happened to live on the same floor of the same apartment building! Crazy. And we've been friends ever since! And then to add on to the crazines--I met Josh through Sarah at her 21st birthday party. Sarah went to high school with Josh. And that's how our family tree is completed. :-)

Since Sarah and Scot live about an hour away, we don't get to see them as much as I'd like. But it's always a fun time when we do get together! It was such a nice day out this past Saturday, so we went golfing. This was the first time I had been golfing this summer so far, and I will have to say, that I did quite well considering how badly I normally golf. I was hitting the ball up in the air, instead of having it skid against the grass. And I was hitting them far--for me. Not far for anyone else, but I felt quite accomplished! Now I feel that I have to golfing more and more this summer to keep up my good work. Josh and I might go again this weekend, actually!

After golfing, we went back to Sarah and Scott's new house and made dinner. Sarah showed off her wonderful cooking skills and made some guacamole, which I LOVE. And then we had tacos. Such a gooood dinner! We then had a fire in their backyard, and after that went out and the bugs started to show up, we went inside to play their new Tiger Woods golf game for the Wii. However, Josh and I ended up playing the disc golf game on there instead. And I DOMINATED at that. Well, at least against Josh. That just realllly made me feel good because in real life, Josh would be the one dominating in disc golf and I'd be in the forest looking for my lost discs that barely went 10 yards. I think that's my new favorite Wii game. :-)

I had such a great weekend! I can't wait to see Sarah and Scott again!

Here's a picture of me, Sarah, and Josh. (sorry Scott, but you must've been somewhere else!) (And also sorry that your eye is cut off Sarah--blame Josh--he took the picture!)