Rochelle's Blog ::: Subtitles Included

One of the units across from mine was vacant for well over a year. It wasn’t until last fall that I noticed someone finally moved into it. It was the subtle changes at first, a doormat, an open window.

And then Christmas rolled around and there were decorations.

And then Christmas passed, and it was a new year. And as my other neighbors around me, plopped their dying Christmas trees out for pick up, I barely even noticed the greenery on this unit’s balcony.

Until I looked closer and realized, it wasn’t a Christmas tree…

It’s actually some sort of bird and squirrel play zone.

At first, I laughed. Who does this? I thought. And why?

But the more I’ve seen the cute little wild life around, I’m kind of happy about it, even if it’s not the prettiest balcony decor.

The only birds that we usually get are pigeons, so I’m happy to see these cute little fatties.

What’s even more baffling is how it’s stayed up this long. I can’t believe the management company hasn’t gotten on it. And to think, I’ve been paranoid about keeping a small trash can on my porch!

The weekend, the weekend! Oh, how I have waited for it.

We’re ten days into the new year and I’m still hoping that energy and motivation will kick me in the ass and get me cleaning, organizing, and purging.

I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself to make this weekend awesome and productive, and so far it’s been all right.

I finally went to the grocery store and stocked up on relatively wholesome foods. I got all the Christmas stuff taken down. I even scrubbed the stove to a sparkling state…a deep overdue scrub.

When at the store, I bought some healthier items with this notion that I may try to ligthen up (probably a good idea since some of my jeans aren’t fitting like I want them too), and one thing I got was Oatmeal to have for breakfast.

There hasn’t been a day in my life that I’ve enjoyed oatmeal, ever. Even with all the bells and whistles like honey, syrup, fruit, you name it. It actually makes me gag. I was always more of a malt-o-meal kind of gal if I was even venturing into the warm cereal-esque waters.

So when I woke up yesterday, and I pondered that box of oatmeal with pure dread, I had a way better (and not nearly as healthy) idea.

Oatmeal cookies of course!

With some left over chocolate chips for good measure.

They turned out pretty yummy, although the recipe I followed guaranteed softness, and well they aren’t quite as soft as I would like. I probably didn’t adjust it enough for altitude.

While at the grocery store, I also bought a whole chicken for $3. Why did I do this? Because I read something earlier this year (ha ha) that was called “America: Too Stupid to Cook.”

It popped up in the “What’s Hot in Google Reader” RSS feed one day and I checked it out and thought the writer had some great points. To summarize and then I’ll link ya to it, Americans are being taught that they are too stupid to cook, basically to sell books and television programming about really “easy” recipes that are supposedly fast as well, because we have no time to cook! No time at all!! Only time to watch television for three hours after dinner.

At the end of the article he describes how actually easy it is to roast a whole chicken, even though there’s a stigma about a meal like that being too hard and too time consuming.

He made some good points, and you should check it out.

Anyway, while at the store on Friday night, I saw the whole chickens, just sitting there, only a couple of bucks and thought…why not. So I went with it. Along with a few other cheap ingredients, that I mostly had on hand…

…it turned out pretty good!

And I had more than one very happy customer.

So like I mentioned in the previous post, I have been terrible, just TERRIBLE at my Project 365 this month. I mostly blame (besides myself) NaNoWriMo, which I’m using as an excuse for everything else I’m behind on (particularly cleaning). But for what it’s worth, here are some of the photos I did take:

November 14, 2009: Pumpkin Pancakes

I made these delicious Pumpkin Pancakes that I found the recipe for at This Week For Dinner. They were delicious and perfect for the season.

November 15, 2009: Penny

Just a simple shot of my dear Penny cat. She’s such a cutie.

November 17 2009: Water Spots

After a weekend of doing lots of laundry, I noticed these water spots on the ceiling. It freaked me out! So I worked from home and had a very nice maintenance man over, who told didn’t really fix anything but cautioned me from over doing it with my washer. Then he came back a few times to paint over it.

November 18 2009: Rochelle in Curly Hair Form

A self portrait, basically used to show my twitter friends about how I wore my hair curly. I can’t tell you how much I love my current haircut. It is one of the best I’ve ever had. And so for the first time ever I’m going to go back to the girl who cut it. I’ve never done that because I typically have such poor experiences.

November 19 2009: New Moon

Like I talked about in my last post, I went to the midnight show of New Moon with my sister and my friend Michelle. It was such a blast. First Twilight at 9, and then New Moon at midnight. The atmosphere was such a blast!

And that’s about it! Everything after New Moon was all about writing my NaNoWriMo novel!

So my friend Amanda has been doing some menu planning for her and her husband, and I’ve been so tempted to give it a try. Trouble is, I’ve found in the past that it’s sort of overkill for a single person. I mean, most nights I can just eat a bowl of cereal and call it good. Why bother?

But I’m going to try it this week so I can create some leftover scenarios for lunches. I love leftovers for lunch. I almost always want to eat it, unlike sandwiches and way more than frozen dinners.

So here’s my plan:

I already had the meatloaf and it was really good. I’ve been craving meatloaf for some reason, and yet I’ve never made it before and I eat it rarely. So I scoured the Internet for meatloaf recipes and decided on one. Well when I got to the store last night, I was looking at breadcrumbs and found a McCormick’s spice mix for meatloaf with a recipe. I ditched all the other ingredients I was going to buy and just went with that, and let me tell you, I’m so glad I did. It was cheap, easy, and delicious.

Obviously, you can see that I had mashed potatoes on the side, Bob Evans microwavable. Very good and easy. And then for dessert, I popped some Pepperidge Farm apple turnovers in the oven. Those are great. My mom used to make those for us all the time when I was a kid. I highly recommend them. You can find them in the frozen food dessert section. You could go through the effort of making your own, from scratch, but it’s seriously not worth it.

So I feel like I had a very Sandra Lee semi-homemade day.

My guests really liked it all too, so I guess you could say it was quite successful.

I’m loving my new system of doing one Project 365 post a week. It’s really freed me up and makes me love my blog so much more! Hope you guys like it too.

Nov 01 2009: Lazy Sunday

Today was great. I watched lots of football, made delicious calzones, and started working on my NaNoWriMo. I also enjoyed the nice weather. Only in Colorado could there be a huge snowy blizzard and then lovely sunny weather soon afterwards. The cats have been loving the extra sunshine of course. Here’s Penny, stretching out in the sunshine:

Nov 02 2009: Pure Evil

So Halloween was two days ago, and once again, no trick-or-treaters came by. So I’m stuck with a bowl full of my absolute favorite candy. How good–or should I say how bad? It calls to me every time I walk by. I’ve been doing ok with only sticking to two pieces a day, but I’m afraid I’ll just give in one day and make myself sick on it. Definitely time to put it away or take it to the office to give away.

Nov 03 3009: Mystery Writer

NaNoWriMo is going pretty slow and since this is my first time writing a mystery story, it’s kind of hard for me. I’ve been watching lots of mysteries on TV and reading a lot. I love my plot so much, it’s just kind of hard to execute so far.

Nov 04 2009: Anniversary

Today is the anniversary of the 2008 election. I’m still excited and happy. Those feelings last year are still so much a part of me. I will never forget it. And even though I still feel upset and somehow the minority in my belief system when you see these rowdy loons, I remind myself of what happened last year and how a strong majority of this country came together to vote for change.

Nov 05 2009: Jinx?

I have a long and complicated history with the Denver Broncos. For the past few years, it’s been impossible for me to be a Broncos fan because I hated Jay Cutler and Mike Shanahan so much. Then a great thing happened. Shanahan was fired and Jay Cutler became a whiney bitch that got the trade he was hoping for. Good riddance a-hole. No one thought the Broncos could go anywhere and that’s how I liked it! I love an underdog. All expectations were out the window and so I embraced the Broncos once again. I saved up some money to get a new Broncos sweatshirt, and when it finally arrived, I wore it for the first time on Sunday. Well it was the first game they lost of the season. So now I’m wondering, is it a jinx? I doubt I have that much control over the universe, so I think I’ll keep wearing it anyway.

Nov 06 2009: Behind

Today I called in sick today, feeling rather lousy. I thought though that I’d get some work done on my NaNoWriMo novel, but even that seemed too hard. So I pretty much sat around and didn’t get too many words in. I did however find the most stressful desktop background. It’s a calendar that shows where my word count should be at each day. Let’s just say I’m already thousands of words behind

Nov 07 2009: Happy Acorn

Today I felt worlds better. I still didn’t do much though, but I had to get out of the house. So I got dressed and went over to Panera to work on my NaNoWriMo novel. That was a great time and I did get some words in and did some important research. But what I missed was my cute happy acorn that sits on my desk back at home. I don’t know why, but this little thing just makes me happy, which somehow inspires me to write. I mean, seriously, how could you not smile when you see it’s happy face?

I can’t help but remember a year ago at this time. I was joyous when we crossed over into November. There was so much to look forward to, particularly the election. It had been such a long time coming and the victory was oh so sweet.

This year, there isn’t nearly as much to look forward to this month, but I’m still quite happy to be here. This month I have NaNoWriMo and some fun times already planned with friends. And of course I love Thanksgiving (obviously).

In theory my November started off good, because DST ended last night. That extra hour really helps and it’s great to have the sun come up at a more reasonable time. But then the night got a little strange and I was up a lot dealing with something. Then I got up early today because I wasn’t feeling well and then technology just hasn’t agreed with me today. So yeah, it hasn’t worked out well so far. But I have hope for a great November!

Did I mention that last night I helped Marissa transform into Jackie Kennedy? Or at least something that resembles Mad Men. I am so terrible at doing hair. We struggled over it forever. Somehow we got it looking somewhat right. Much like me, she’s just got so much of it!

As for the rest of Halloween, I pretty much stuck around home and watched a lot of Ghost Hunters and even a “scary” movie called The Eye with Jessica Alba, which completely sucked.

I didn’t get any trick-or-treators (as usual) and so I’m stuck with a great big bowl of candy (yay me!).

It’s Halloween weekend and that means there’s going to be some festivities.

First off, tonight I’m going to rush home and get ready for the annual Matthies Halloween party. Last year was a ton of fun, and I’m expecting the same this year. Like I said in an earlier post, I’m going to be Cleopatra. I’m really looking forward to this costume. Hopefully, I can get the head piece worked out.

Then on Halloween itself, I get to stick around home and relax. Since last weekend didn’t feel much like a weekend all, but instead felt like work, I look forward to just bumming around and doing whatever. Hopefully, I won’t be totally lazy.

Then, at the stroke of midnight, I can begin writing my novel for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I’ve been waiting to participate in this all year, and I’m so excited. The gist, is that you have to write a 50,000 word (150 page) fictional novel between November 1 and November 30. You would be surprised how many people participate in this. There are at least 780 people in Boulder doing it alone. So I’m super psyched!

The work itself is going to be a mystery. I’ve never written mystery before, but I’ve read plenty. It’s going to be called “The Four Mansions on Lambert Bay” and it will have a female tow historian/librarian protagonist that solves it all.

Before it’s all said and done, I’m going to make some calzones on Sunday. Thanks Amanda for the recipe tip!

Another really long day today pouring over code. When I do this, I end up hunching my shoulders and leaning forward at my display. Not good for my body. So on the way home, I was realizing just how tense I was, physically. So I figured, why not have some wine tonight and relax. And that’s exactly what I did. I got some Pin0t Grigio.

As for work, the big project is coming along. There’s still so much to do, and I’ll definitely be working through the weekend.

So I hate to drone on about work, but work is ruling my life this week. The big project continues and I spend hours at a time staring into my display making tweaks and writing code. I’ve been keeping my door closed with a little note asking for peace and quiet, although I still get people knocking all the time. But that’s ok.

Paging Dr. Yang

I keep thinking to myself that I need to channel my inner Cristina Yang. If you’re not familiar. Cristina Yang is the go-getter work obsessed surgeon on Grey’s Anatomy. She’s brutal, cold, and serious. And that’s what this big project is going to take!

But sadly, no matter how hard I try, I could never be as disciplined like Cristina. It turns out, I’m probably more like Meredith this week. She’s a good surgeon too, and she’s pretty snarky, rather cold, but not all together unfeeling about others. After all, if I was Cristina, I’d probably say exactly what I’m thinking to some of my co-workers, which would not be a good thing. Maybe Dr. Bailey would be the best way to go. Yeah, Dr. Bailey.

When I got home from work, I put a bowl of chili in the microwave and watched a show. And then I packed my lunch for tomorrow and programmed the coffee pot for the morning. Then it was upstairs, where I put on my PJs and put a load of laundry in. By 7:30 I was pretty much ready for bed. But instead of just getting in bed, I’m working more.

Anyway, I didn’t have much to photograph tonight. The weather turned foggy and cold today and it just feels like Halloween. So I snapped a picture of one of my favorite halloween decorations. Why wouldn’t it be my favorite? It’s a cat and it’s got candy!

Mreowr!

I’m not exactly sure what I expect to happen most weeknights. I usually have big plans for the night. Like massive overhauls of various aspects of my life. Like today, I figured that I would come home from one of the most intense workdays I’ve had in forever and spend my off time cleaning my desk area and moving my printer downstairs. Sounds fun, huh? Yet somehow, these extra-curricular self-improvement exercises rarely happen after long days, and I typically crash in front of the TV watching Grey’s Anatomy and playing bejeweled.

And then there are these nights, that I don’t see coming for some reason. It starts of simple enough, Marissa asks me for a ride because Johnny’s working and he has the car. And then that ride is never just a ride to her house. It’s a ride to my house, because Johnny works nearby. And then there’s always this promise that it won’t be for long. Just until Johnny gets off work. But it’s almost always for longer than we plan. And it used to be that Johnny would call to tell her he was here, but she kept inviting him upstairs to help her get her stuff together or to hang out a little while longer. So now he just comes right upstairs. And then they end up sticking around for quite a while and we chat about stuff. It’s great! I really love these nights when I get to hang out with them.

So tonight was one of those nights and we watched the Broncos game and talked all about everything. From drugs, to creative writing, to sports fans, to budgeting and meal planning.

Marissa and Johnny and some yummy cookies.