This and that

So back in May, I went to the UMass spring concert in Amherst to see Ben Folds. I found out that the concert was a few hours long and featured many different acts including OK Go and this girl, Sara... Something. She wouldn't tell us her last name because she said that we wouldn't remember it. It was her, a piano and a guy to play percussion. Her voice was beautiful. I loved her songs. When we got home, we looked at the schedule for the concert and found out that her name was Sara Bareilles. I found her cd on Amazon and bought it immediately and loved it. Fast forward a few months later and she has EXPLODED! Her songs are all over the radio and tv! We just bought tickets to see her when she comes to Boston in April. Here's her single that I'm sure you've heard, Love Song.



I made this music player at MyFlashFetish.com. More colors.


I'm also pretty happy with my job right now. There's this one kid who has been there for pretty much his whole life. He's going home next week. I am so happy for him! But I am also a little sad, too. I'm going to miss him. He's one of my best friends at work. But hopefully his family will being him back to visit. He will have so much fun living at home! The hospital is making him a going away present of a scrapbook. It's filled with pictures of him and staff members. I was given a copy of our picture together.


When my friend, Sarah, came for a visit last weekend we had such a good time! We met her at the bus station Saturday afternoon and went to the ICA. It's a relatively new building, and Sarah (an architecture student) has heard all about the building and wanted to see it. The building was really cool (arguably cooler then the exhibits inside). We followed that up with a tasting at the Harpoon Brewery. I'm so happy that they now have Raspberry Harpoon UFO on draft! That is hands down my all time favorite beer and I've never had it on draft before. That was a big highlight of the weekend for me. Then on Sunday, we planned to walk around Boston for a while before Sarah went back to Albany. Against Andrew's wishes, we ended up at the Aquarium. I had been there twice in January, and both times, this turtle was laying on a rock underwater in the big tank, not moving at all. He was in the same place both trips. I even saw a fist eating something off of his eye and he didn't blink. I wondered why they left a dead turtle there. When we went there on Sunday, I checked and that turtle was in the same place. I was so sad that his dead body was left there. As I was looking at him, feeling sorry, all of the sudden, he started to move! He swam up for a breath and continued to swim around the tank! The turtle was ALIVE!!!
This weekend, out friend, Marc, is coming to visit. We're going to meet him at the airport Saturday morning, then the rest of the weekend is still kind of up in the air. But I remembered to charge my camera, so I'll be able to post pictures.
Have a good weekend!

Catching up...

Long time no post, huh? I've been busy. We had a friend come out to visit last weekend, then I had to work for a few days in a row (and that takes everything out of me...) and now I have today and tomorrow to do laundry and get the house ready for another house guest this weekend.
So that's all I've been up to...
Except, as promised, my fish came out really well.

I started with 2 boneless fillets of flounder. I made rice, added cheese and steamed broccoli. I put that inside the flounder and rolled the fillet on to itself. I sprinkled some paprika on top, served it with more rice and ta da!

It was really good. Tonight's gourmet meal? Meatloaf. Not quite as exciting, but I do make an awesome meatloaf.

More Cooking...

I've been feeling fancy in the kitchen lately. I haven't been as keen on our usual hot dogs with beans or pizzas. I was so happy with how my Chicken a la Paul Newman came out, so I decided to keep up with the fancier meals.
Knowing that I had some Alfredo sauce at home that I wanted to use, I went to the grocery store looking for foods to go with that. I saw that they were having a sale on shrimp. I got 1/4 pound for $1.24. Not too bad. I also bought some fresh broccoli and some organic whole wheat rotini pasta. The shrimp were already cooked, so I just needed to peal their tales off. And I steamed the broccoli as I cooked the pasta. The alfredo sauce (which I didn't make- it was from a jar) was a little salty, but not intolerable. I was going to take a picture of it to post here, but I was too hungry. Sorry.
Tonight I also have something up my sleeve. I'm going to make flounder stuffed with rice, cheese and broccoli. I'll let you know how it turns out...

Chicken a la Paul Newman

On Saturday, I made this recipe that I found on a bottle of Paul Newman salad dressing. You need chicken breast, Italian dressing, 2 tomatoes, chopped olives. It turned out really well. I did tweak it a little (of course). Here's what I did:

I took 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts and put them in a zip lock bag with 2/3 cup of Paul Newman Italian dressing (the recipe called for a full cup of dressing, but I couldn't fit any more in my zip lock bag). Then I let it marinate in the refrigerator for like 5 hours (the recipe says to let it marinate for 1 hour, but I figure the more the better).
When you're ready to start to cook the chicken, preheat the oven to 350.
Put each breast in a section of aluminum foil big enough that you will be able to fully wrap around the chicken.
Chop the tomatoes as small as you would like and divide them between the chicken breasts.
Then take the chopped olives (I used a jar of salad olives) and add them to the chicken breasts, too.
(Now this part is tricky. Make sure that the aluminum foil is folded up around the bottom of the chicken so that you don't make a mess and lose all of your marinade) Carefully take the Italian dressing that the chicken was marinating in and add that to the chicken breasts as well.
Then fold the rest of the aluminum foil around the chicken. You want the foil tightly around the chicken, but make sure to leave space between the chicken and the foil.
Bake for 25-30 minutes.
I served mine with rice. Yummy!

Let's take a step back...

I'm sure that by now, everyone has seen or at least heard about this video:


The situation is totally wrong and should not have been handled like that, however the media is really driving me crazy with one small mis-fact.
The man is not quadriplegic. If you watch the video of the incident, he braces himself with his arms. And if you watch the interview, he is moving his arms.
Ask anyone with medical knowledge (or anyone with knowledge of Latin prefixes and roots). Quad=4 therefore quadriplegic means that all 4 limb are paralyzed.
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary defines quadriplegia as follows:
Main Entry: quad·ri·ple·gia
Pronunciation: "kwäd-r&-'plE-j(E-)&
Function: noun
: paralysis of all four limbs called also tetraplegia

The man is a paraplegic. As I said, this is still an awful incident and the officers should be reprimanded and be required to go to training. But please, Media, please try to get the facts correct.

Scarf...Done

It took me almost 2 months, but I have completed my first knitting project. My scarf is done!

It's not perfect by any means. I made a bunch of mistakes in it, but I love it. I worked so hard and I am so proud of my accomplishment!

Isn't it cute?

Now I've started on a blanket. This blanket might not be done until next year, but I am so happy with my new little hobby.
Wish me luck!

Jake Ivory's

Friday night, a bunch of us girls from work went out to a dueling piano bar called Jake Ivory's.

(Ashley, Jenn, Me, Heather, Emily and Sarah)
It was so much fun. You request any song, and they'll play it. They know like every song in the world!
Jake's is a big place for bachelor and bachelorette parties They kept asking us what we were celebrating. My friend, Jenn, and celebrated being the biggest Barack fans ion all of Boston,

while Emily and I celebrated not having to change diapers or change suction canisters this weekend.

I started the night off with Cape Coders, but switched to Corona's when I saw the bottle that they came in.

The other 3 girls left as the night progressed leaving just Emily, Jenn and I.

So, like any self respecting bunch of 20-something professionals living in Boston (and knowing that the truck of supplies was leaving Fenway that night heading to FL and Spring Training), we decided that the best thing to do was to leave the bar and walk around Fenway Park looking for any sign that Spring Training is about to start. We did not find the truck, but we had a lovely time with a statue.

We then decided that the only thing left to do was to have Emily's boyfriend pick us up and bring us to get Chinese Food.
I felt amazingly well the next morning (especially for not getting home until 3:30!), but now I think I'm getting a bad cold.
Saturday I went to a family reunion/Birthday Party, but the battery in my camera was dead, so I have to wait for my mom to send me more pictures before I post about that.

Pet Pictures...

I had my first night as charge all by myself. It was busy and a little stressful, but I did it! Other than that, there's nothing much else going on.
So.........
I thought that I'd post some pictures of the pets.

Have a good weekend!

In the past, I haven't really cared about the primary elections. I was not a big fan of any of the candidates, just hoping for the lesser of 2 evils. This year is different. I came home from work this morning and headed straight to the poles. I cast my ballot for Obama. I feel that, especially today, EVERY vote is going to count. I didn't care how tired I was from working all night, or how grumpy I was to walk home in the rain. So now I'm waiting for the results tonight. The poor kids- I'm back at work tonight and they're going to have to watch politics in stead of cartoons. Anyone who is not yet registered to vote, register today! This presidential election is literally going to change the world. Whether your political ideals match mine or not, I believe that everyone should vote. If you don't vote, you can't bitch.
Go Barack!!

I think the cd is complete

I think I have selected songs that will be appropriate and interesting to an 8 year old. It was much harder than I thought. Some people didn't think this was a good idea, but I never listed to kids music. Growing up, I always listened to real music. And I started buying my own music when I was like 10 or 11, so I tried to pick some stuff that I liked when I was young. Here's the songs that I think will be ok.



I made this music player at MyFlashFetish.com.

Just a few things: 1. I know that The Who sing is actually called Baba O'Riley, but the only version that I could find to put on my blog has it titled Teenage Wasteland, so I do not need all the comments correcting that issue.
and 2. The Eve6 song is a live version on here, and I plan to have the studio version on the cd.

What do you think?

2/5/08 Edited to add:
It's true- I have always listened to "adult" music. I remember driving my mom crazy when I was maybe 8 or 9 by listening to a Bonnie Raitt tape over and over again in her car. I fell in love with The Beatles in 6th grade (when I watched the Beatles Anthology on tv), and I was in 7th grade when I was hooked on Oasis. I bought all of my Nirvana cds used when I was like 11 or 12. This might also be better illustrated by my vast concert experience. I went to my first concert when I was 2 (Jackson Browne), saw Frank Zappa a few years later, saw Meatloaf numerous times before I was in high school (the first time being when Bat Out Of Hell II came out- which was 1993 so that would make me 8 or 9 years old), saw the Counting Crows and the Wallflowers in like 1995 or 1996, was very upset that I couldn't go with a friend to see Bush in (I think 1996 or 1997) because it was the same weekend as the Street Festival, saw Bob Dylan when I was in 8th grade (and happened to be sitting right behind my English teacher!), also saw Goo Goo Dolls and Matchbox Twenty that same year, went to my first "festival" concert the summer before high school featuring Dishwalla, The Flys, Marcy's Playground, Joan Osbourne, Goo Goo Dolls (saw them twice in 1 year), and Third Eye Blind, the list goes on...

Goals

I made this music player at MyFlashFetish.com. More colors.

I am really into this song right now. It's from the Juno soundtrack. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I really want to. Just thought that I'd share this song with you. Isn't it the cutest little song?

So I have a few goals for this month.
1. I just took (and passed) an Advanced Cardiac Life Support class taught my the American Heart Association. I have a cd of practice questions. I want to re-test my self at the end of the month to make sure that I retained what I learned in the class.

2. Finish my scarf. I am about 65% of the way done and I am going to finish it before March 1st so that I can wear it this year.

3. At work yesterday, I started orienting to Charge. I had a whirlwind of an orientation and was thrown to the wolves to be charge from 3-7. When I'm charge (since I'll be charge on off shifts), I will usually be charge with an assignment of my own. Yesterday (since it was my first time) I was charge without an assignment. Everything was fine, but I kind of felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants.By then end of the month, I will feel comfortable doing charge with an assignment and I will be good at it.

4. Catch up on laundry. I have had piles of laundry since like October. We have a small space and a lot of things, so many times clean clothes wind up getting left around. We will get rid of clothes and things that we don't need, and have everything that we do need put away.

4 things might not seem overwhelming to some people, but to me these seem like some pretty big tasks. Especially big tasks when I think that this is a short month. Wish me luck!