Ahhhhh...

Checklist for a Perfect Evening

Eggplant Parmesan in the oven cooking
Dishwasher emptied (this is a big one)
Lunches made for work tomorrow
Outfit picked out for work tomorrow
(First home game tomorrow night!)
Rascal Flatts playing in the background as you blog
(The CD is great, by the way)
and best of all,
The Premiere of The Office in 2 hours and 37 minutes
(not that I'm counting)

"There's nothing on my horizon except everything.
Everything is on my horizon."

Note: If you don't like The Office, then we can't be friends.
Not even blog friends. I admit it; I am an Office elitist.

The Best (Jerry), The Best

I'm fairly certain that the country group, Rascal Flatts, is the best in the world. In my opinion, their songs evoke feelings and recall times that everyone has had or can relate to. I feel slightly smug because when they came out with their first self-titled CD, I bought it before anyone even knew who they were. So I feel justified in saying that I am a true fan who didn't just jump on the bandwagon 'o love for these guys or see the scandalous music video where Joe BA'd everyone and suddenly love the group. Having said that, I plan to hightail it to Target immediately after work today to buy their latest CD. Apparently (in store) Target has one with a bonus disc. (This is the standard edition.)

If I Won - Another Installment

For the background, read and understand.
I would stay up all night surfing the internet and buying things like this with all the accessories (and paying for rush shipping) because I definitely WOULDN'T be going into work tomorrow.

Just Out of the Oven

My supply of scones in the freezer was depleted, so it was time to bake some fresh to go with our morning coffee the next few weeks. My husband is a fan of chocolate chip...a tried and true favorite (and he doesn't stray). I prefer a fruit of some sort. Apricot is the current front runner, but cranberry-orange is a close second. However, tonight I tried white chocolate cherry to make use of the dried cherries that I picked up at the store today. The finished product is delicious, although I am not a huge fan of white chocolate, so I'll probably just make them with only cherries next time.

(Please to excuse the plywood counter-top,
we are currently remodeling.)

Recently Acquired

My mom and I went shopping today. It was not a great haul. Due to recent styles being voluminous, I tend to take a small (when normally I wear a medium or the occasional large) and smalls were nowhere to be seen. I checked out the new collection of Simply Vera Wang at Kohl's, pathetic and HUGE. Perhaps if I was 8 1/2 months pregnant some of those blouses would have given me pause. As it was, not even Daisy Fuentes caused my eye to stray today. My take is as follows:

Candie's CoatElle BlouseApt. 9 BlouseOh, and yesterday, I got these Roxy Shoes

The Other Family Member

In lieu of children, which we plan to have but not for a time (deliberately vague... that's how I try to keep my answers when some tactless person asks if we are trying to have children, as apparently being married over three years gives virtual strangers the right to ask), we have a kitty. Or rather, the kitty has us [right where he wants us]. As evidence, a story: The kitty (Griffin) became ill last fall and over the course of some months and various antibiotics as we struggled to make him well, we were forced to feed him a small portion of wet cat food twice a day along with a pill. As you can work out, last fall was almost a year away and we still have to give him the morning portion of wet cat food. Somehow we found a universe wormhole and he's forgotten about the evening portion, but like clockwork he starts meowing about 6 a.m. every morning for his "breakfast". And by meowing, I mean crying and yell meowing until one of us gets up and feeds him, at which point he eats it and then goes right back to sleep in his blanket on the couch. He's got it real rough here.Now that you've seen the cutest cat in the world, how about the cutest dog?

Home-Owners

We bought our house tonight. Technically, it has been our house for almost three years, but tonight we started the process to refinance the loan into only my husband and I's names. The loan rate should be finalized tomorrow and then we'll be in "escrow" for 30 days. I use quotations as we are "buying" the house from my in-laws. It sort of emotionless as it's already felt like our house and we've been making house payments since we moved in, but if I tell myself that now the equity will be accruing for us alone, I realize the impact. Anyway, I am boring myself with this dry, financial talk. I really wanted to do a segment on my kitty complete with great photos from our new camera, but I went to load the photos on the computer and discovered that the batteries in the camera needed to be recharged. So stay tuned for that coming this weekend.

(Not exactly our house, but oh could you call it our house?
Don't you ever imagine anything different from the way they are?)

This could be bad.

My husband recently got a job working for, as I refer to it in my head, the most wonderful Corporation of Stores on Earth. As listed on the website, there is a generous employee discount and I quite agree. However, the discount may not be enough to prevent me from becoming destitute in a very short time. It's one of those cases where something may cost $400, but when the "generous discount" is applied, suddenly the total seems like change I could find in my couch cushions on any given day. A warning: if I suddenly start showing up in rags and my hair is in dire need of product, I invite you to my house for surely, at that point, it must be mansionesque in decor and boasting of a chef's kitchen. ...that doesn't seem like a bad trade-off.