Happy belated new year and Aldi trampolines

Happy New Year, everyone!  Even though I'm almost a month late, but that's beside the point.  With finals, Christmas, family stuff, and moving, I haven't really had the energy to put anything up here.  However, after discussing with one of my friends some of the weird shit that we've seen sold at my favorite grocery store, Aldi, I decided to make this quick post.  I present to you, the top two weirdest things from my most recent grocery run.

Resistance-band style weight bench

Mini trampoline (!!!!!!)

You're welcome.

Indecisive Bastard is indecisive

With school and work and holidays and blah blah blah, I haven't had much time for blogging.  However, I had to pop in to share this conversation.  Background info: My husband tries his damnedest to never decide anything.  Ever.  Also?  Never consult me for snappy comebacks.  This is a one-time deal here.

Me: What do you want for dinner?

Dan: I dunno.

Me: Well, we have ground beef thawed.  I also bought taco seasoning and spaghetti sauce.  Which would you rather have?

Dan: Meh.  Whatever.

Me: Alrighty.  I'll be in the living room whenever you make a decision.

Dan (as I'm walking out of the room): Whatever!

Me (walking back in the room): You never make a decision.  Do you even know how decision-making works??

Dan (grinning): No, not really! Why don't you explain it to me in 3 words or less.

Me (pondering for a few seconds): ...Choose... an... option.

Dan (boggling): Oh my god.  You actually did it.

Me: That's right!  I win!

Dan: What the fuck?!  GTFO!!

Me (walking out of the room): I WIN, BITCHES!!!

That's right.  I'm a winner!

Happy birthday, you Scotch-Irish Bastard!

Thursday was The Bastard's birthday, so yesterday I threw him a little get-together.  It was just us, a few friends, some cake, and a whole lot of balloons.

The decorators may have been 12.  And by decorators, I mean me & my friend JB.

I also found this kickass Betty Crocker bar mix that was brownies and chocolate chip cookies mixed together. So fuck yeah, I bought it!  I bought 2 boxes!  And this was the result:

OMNOMNOM

I might have made a joke about calling the fire marshal at this point!

Win: Weapon of Choice

I have just been informed that there are people in existence that have never seen the greatest music video of all time.  Because of this, I'm posting it now.  YOU'RE WELCOME.

OMG Look A These Fucking Hot Dogs

I was in Aldi today and was checking out the sale and limited-time stuff because some of it's pretty awesome.  Like what I found today:

On the right, normal sized hot dogs.  On the left, JUMBO-SIZED JUMBO JUMBO DOGS!!!!

Oh yes.  I bought them.

Copernicus may have been a lamp model

The most awesome lamp ever.  EVAR.  And yes, that is a Han Solo bookmark next to it!

So between insomnia, quitting smoking, chronic pain, and general stress, my head's been in a weird place lately.  Last night I took a look at my bedside lamp.  Like, really looked at it.  Now, I got this lamp as a Christmas present, I think in 2003, from my mom with whom I have this recurring joke about monkeys.  For some reason, I have accumulated lots of monkey-themed paraphernalia, and never realized it until about 9 years ago when one of my fellow cast members pointed out that I showed up to many of my Pirates of Penzance rehearsals in monkey shirts and I earned the moniker "Monkeymonkeymonkey".  I told Mom this, since she was the one who bought most of the shirts, and she thought this was hilarious since she hadn't noticed it, either.  IIRC, there was eye-rolling from The Bastard over this.

Anyway, every now and then, my mom will give me a monkey-themed gift or card or whatever, the most epic of these being my prized monkey lamp.  It has been a point of contention between me and The Bastard, such as when we moved into this apartment:

Me: Hey!  I just unpacked the monkey lamp!
Dan: Oh.  Yay.
Me: Where do you think we should put it? Do you think the living room is too big a space for it?  It's not a very big lamp.
Dan: I think the closet could use some more light.
Me: What?!  The monkey lamp needs to be seen!  The monkey lamp is awesome!
Dan: The monkey lamp is creepy.
Me: Whatever! I'm putting it by the bed!

So that's how the monkey lamp ended up on my nightstand.  Anyway, I couldn't sleep so somehow between chapters of "Sphere" and pondering turning off the light again, I took a good look at the lamp.

Holy shit!  He looks like Copernicus!  For those of you who do not know of Copernicus, he's a stuffed monkey that The Bloggess recently purchased from a thrift store.  He likes to give hugs and may be missing part of his face.  Now I'm thinking that he also may have modeled for lamps when he was younger, which means Jenny seriously got a deal on him.

Also, since I'm sharing my decor with everyone, this is my zebra lamp that one of my friends gave me for my 21st birthday.  I loved it because I adore tacky zebra print, and because it goes so well with my monkey lamp.

Consequently, The Bastard has forbidden me from shopping with The Bloggess, even though I've never met her and probably won't unless I begin stalking her or somehow convince Nathan Fillion to take a picture with twine.  I am warming The Bastard up to the idea of getting me a "Knock-knock, motherfucker" t-shirt for Christmas, though.

Sexy Saxophone Interlude

You're welcome.

Recipe: Mandarin Chicken (complete!)

I think I may have finally perfected it last night!  This may be due in part to the fact that I sucked it up and asked The Bastard for advice, but overall it didn't need much tweaking.  It may need a little more cornstarch, though... I'm still a little iffy on the consistency.

Ingredients:
2-3 chicken boneless skinless breasts, cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp (or to taste) crushed red pepper flakes
1 can (11 oz.) of mandarin oranges
1/2 c sugar
2 1/2 tbsp of cornstarch
1 sweet onion, sliced
1 yellow pepper, sliced
2 c broccoli, steamed
1 can water chestnuts
1 c rice, steamed
Olive oil

Combine soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, crushed red pepper, and juice from mandarin oranges.  Place chicken in a bowl and pour just enough of the mixture over it to cover the chicken.  Marinate in the fridge for about 15 minutes.  Set the rest of the sauce aside.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat and sautee onion and pepper slices until onions begin to caramelize and peppers are tender.  Drain chicken and add to skillet.  Cook until chicken is no longer pink in the middle.  Add water chestnuts and stir-fry for an additional 2 minutes.

Add sugar and cornstarch to remaining sauce, then pour the sauce and mandarin oranges into the skillet and bring to a boil.  Heat for about 2 minutes or until sauce thickens and oranges fall apart.  Pour over rice and broccoli and serve.

Makes about 4 servings.

Recipe (sort of): Mandarin Chicken - needs improvement!

It was my turn to cook last night. I had fully intended on finding something new and creative to make on my lunch break yesterday, but with last week's "snowpocalypse" I'm completely behind on work stuff and didn't get much of a break at all. Therefore, when I got home at 6:15, I had a bunch of thawed chicken but no plan.

Desperately tearing apart my fridge and pantry, I found the beginnings of a Chinese-style orange chicken dish, so I punched a few ingredients into Allrecipes.com and found a Mandarin beef stir-fry recipe.  Bingo!  Just needed a little bit of improvising, right?  I'll tell you what I did, then what went wrong.  However, I think I'm actually on the right track with this one for once!

Ingredients:
2-3 chicken boneless skinless breasts, cut into 1-inch cubes (it was actually a handful of chicken strips, but that's about what it comes out to in breasts)
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp garlic powder
1 can of mandarin oranges (10oz, I think?)
1/2 c sugar
1 sweet onion, sliced
1 yellow pepper, sliced
2 c broccoli, steamed
1 c rice, steamed
Olive oil

Combine soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, and juice from mandarin oranges.  Place chicken in a bowl and pour just enough of the mixture over it to cover the chicken.  Marinate in the fridge for about 15 minutes.  (Don't put the oranges in the marinade - trust me on this.  Just set them aside.)  Set the rest of the sauce aside.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat and sautee onion and pepper until onions begin to caramelize and peppers are tender.  Drain chicken and add to skillet.  Cook until done.

(Here's where it went wrong)  Add sugar to remaining sauce, then pour the sauce and mandarin oranges into the skillet and bring to a boil.  Heat for about 2 minutes or until sauce thickens.  Pour over rice and broccoli and serve.

So what went wrong?  When I read the original recipe that I based this off of, I could have sworn I had corn starch.  However, I got to the part that said, "Combine the cornstarch and reserved marinade until smooth," searched for the cornstarch, and panicked.  I was out and that must be what thickens the sauce!  I tried to think of what thickens sauces, but what the hell do I know about cooking?  And I'll be damned if I ask The Bastard since I was so fucking confident walking into the kitchen that I didn't need help with this meal.  I mean, my pride was on the line here, people!  (Speaking of which, I rest my case about the Taurus thing.)


I finally settled on sugar because I knew that worked; I just didn't know what quantity.  I started with 1/4 c, then bumped it up another 1/4 when that didn't work.  It thickened just slightly, but not nearly to the extent I was going for.  Finally after about 10 minutes of simmering, I said, "Fuck it," turned off the burner, and started scooping the meat, onions, and peppers into the bowl with the rice and broccoli.  I slowly poured the sauce into the bowl so I wouldn't end up with rice soup.  After staring at it for a few seconds, trying to work up my courage, I tasted it.


Hoars, it was actually good!  Slightly sweet, slightly tangy - I actually improvised something that tasted good, and I didn't even set the kitchen on fire!  This is a major kitchen breakthrough for me.  There's just one thing left to sort out:  fucking sauces!  How do they work???  I don't want to ditch the sugar, so would I need to add the whole 2 tbsp of cornstarch?  Or am I off base about that being the thickening agent?  If anyone wants to help me out on this, hit me up in the comments.

I am the worst blogger in the history of blogging.

I am. I really am. I've reinvented this blog twice and still have no idea what I want to do with it! Originally The Bastard was supposed to help me with it but he lost interest in about 5 seconds.

I think I'll just post whatever comes to me. That's what normal bloggers do, right? Hell, it's not like anyone reads this, anyway, so to hell with expectations!

Yeah, I think that's what I'll do. I need to play with that whole email-to-blog thing. I keep getting ideas to write about when I'm not at the computer and then forget them all when I finally sit down. I have a Blackberry that's email-capable, so I really ought to use it. I wish Blogger would make an app for it, though. That would probably be easier/more reliable.

Ah, stream of consciousness writing... it's an interesting thing, isn't it?

Crochet man wins teh interwebz!

That is all.

Grocery Shopping - Ur Doin it Right!

Dude. It is amazing how much money you can save if you actually use coupons and look at the circular ads before you shop. I almost cut this bill in half! Granted, we didn't have to buy much this week, but that's mostly due to the fact that I was able to buy two 3-lb bags of frozen chicken tenderloins for $1.69/lb last week!

I have a Kroger card, so I get coupons in the mail from them, plus I use online coupons from Shortcuts.com and Cellfire.com. I've also used a few on Kroger's website, but their selection of online coupons has really sucked lately. I've also printed coupons off of Coupons.com which usually has a pretty good selection.

Anyone looking to save money on groceries, though, should check out the circulars first and foremost. Check the store's website - Kroger, for example, has their weekly specials online. If you look at that first and plan your weekly menu around what you already have and can buy on sale, I guarantee you'll save money. That's how I found that chicken on sale - I checked the ad!