Meow

Meow meow. It's wednesday. Thank GOD. It's been a long week, and it's only wednesday. I'm having co-worker drama again, which just causes me STRESS. Arrrgh.

Heidi and Nizar are headed to Puerto Vallarta on saturday. I wish we were going, but I don't get vacation time until the end of July. The first week of August I'm headed to a conference in southern california and Austin plans to come with me and do the theme parks and then after we will spend a few days. I hope we can go to Sea World. I went way back when I was in Grade 6 and I don't remember MUCH about it but I remember I liked it! And I love zoo's and animals so I figure it should be fun. But that's pretty much all we have on the vacation horizon. We had hoped to squeeze in a few days at my parents place in Puerto Vallarta, but I'm just not sure it's going to happen before they go back down there in October/November.

The Coconut Cake!

The Coconut Cake!
Originally uploaded by grumpysnickles.

Voila! The coconut cake. It turned out well...I would make it again but it is a very VERY rich cake...and although the frosting flavor was good, the consistency was terrible and it was very runny so I had to have the cake set up in the fridge first.

Long weekends are awesome

I love long weekends. I think that there should be a long weekend EVERY single month. Granted, I haven't done anything productive yet with my long weekend, but it sure will be nice to have monday off to do WHATEVER (like go through the boxes of crap we should have never moved and are taking up space in the garage).

I got a pedicure today, got my eyebrows waxed (which I hate doing, because apparently I have large hair follicles which is why it hurts me so much but it was time again) and got an oil change for my car. I'm baking a coconut cake right now (it's in the oven as I type this!) and we are having Heidi and Nizar over for some chicken on the bbq and hopefully a game of dominos (I LOVE LOVE LOVE playing dominos).

Tomorrow, Austin is going to smoke a brisket. This is a pretty big deal. Not only is it 9 pounds of meat, but it also take a good 12 hours to smoke (low and slow baby!). Should be yummy really looking forward to it. We'll invite a few people over to help us eat the brisket. Yum!

Ant follow up

The ant death traps are working fabulously. The ants are marching into the traps and aren't coming back out, or if they do they take some of the bait back to wherever they are coming from and are sharing with their friends, only to have their friends die too. Normally I feel bad for animals dying, but I hate ants (actually I hate ALL insects) so I don't feel too bad.

It's almost the long weekend. We don't have any plans, I'd like to go through some of the boxes (full of crap mind you that we probably shouldn't have moved) that are in the garage and do something with them (either purge or move to the basement!) and maybe hang some art work. Austin and I were also taking about driving down to the Royal Gorge in Southern Colorado for the day. I've never been there, and it seems fun so we might do that if we have good weather. Other than that, nothing planned! I'm pretty thankful it's friday tomorrow! Tonight we are watching the season finale of LOST...we have heard that a lot of BIG things happen....

Ewww...ants

I came home today and found a bunch of little ants in our kitchen. EW EW EW. This wasn't the first time. So I changed clothes, and went to Home Depot to find some anti-ant potions. I found some ant baits which are now in the kitchen, and some spray for the outside. I had a nice person helping me at the bug killing section, and I was completely grossed out by the types of bugs there are and even just the magnitude of the number of ants that there are out there.

Anyways, hope that this solves the ant issue.

Ew.

Yea for greencards

I got a notice from the Department of Homeland Security that my permanent greencard has FINALLY been approved. YEA! If you marry an American, you get a conditional greencard for 2 years to they can make sure that you stay together and then they will give you a permanent one for 10 years at a time. I have been waiting for close to a year now for my permanent greencard, and it FINALLY made it through their big backlog. Great news! I can apply for citizenship in September, which I;m not sure if I will or not. It'd be nice to vote, but I have such a connection to Canada it'd be hard for me to become a citizen of another country. I'll cross that bridge closer to September and decide then.

Shoe help

I have recently discovered Zappos.com, which is an online shoe retailer that has about a bazillion kinds of shoes in all sorts of sizes and widths. I have wide feet so it's hard for me to find shoes that fit comfortably. And usually I don't. I ordered two pairs of thoes which I LOVE, but they are both so similar that I feel i should send one back. I should say, they have free overnight shiping and free shipping on returns.

Any thoughts, first pair or second pair?

Herb gardens and Alphadog

Today we drove all the way down to Colorado Mills Mall (which is a good 40 minutes) so I could check out the Naturalizer store (a shoe store I sometimes buy shoes from becuase they are comfie and they come in wide sizes). After checking the mall website as well as the naturalizer website and both showing that as the only location in Colorado (there used to be more) I figured I would be safe and it would be open. It wasn't. Guess that one closed too. Anyways, after we drove back up I bought a bunch of herbs and potted them and put them outside. I bought cilantro, parsley, basil, chives and oregano. Oh, and Catnip for the kitties!

We just finished cooking steaks on the barbie, and are settling into watch Alpha Dog from Netflicks. So far, not loving it but it usually takes me a few mintues to get into a movie.

Gold Hill Restaurant

On Saturday night we went up with Ausitn’s family to the Gold Hill Inn (www.goldhillinn.com) which is a historic hotel and restaurant serving up 5 courses. Austin and I have never heard of the place, which isn’t unsual for me since I was born and raised in another country, but found it odd that Austin had never heard of it, considering he was born and raised in the Denver Metro! The place is located up a canyon just beyond Boulder, and the drive was very nice, until it started snowing significantly. Made for some nice pictures, but a very anxious Nicole!

You basically get a 5 course meal for $31.00. Seems like a great deal. The food was…so so. It was a neat experience, and it was great to get together with the family, but the food wasn’t all that great. They offered a lot of selection with the entrees, which I think if they had cut down on the selection they would be able to concentrate more on making the dishes taste good. In the beginning we thought oh, great place to take people from out of town too, but I doubt we’d be itchng to go back anytime soon. Definitely interesting, something to do at least once, but not something I’d crave (like, oh, say the Melting Pot!)

I’ve put a bunch of pictures on my flickr site! Take a look! (www.flickr.com/photos/58938245@N00/sets/72157600194708838/)

RIP Baby Bunny

I had a sad discovery this afternoon. When I came home, I tried to check my email and our wireless access wasn't working, so that means I have to go downstairs and shut everything off and turn it back on. While I was waiting for the router to power off, I was looking at the scratch marks on the plastic covering the insulation in our basement. Apparently they like scratching it which I'm not so happy with considering it's not good for them. Anyways, I noticed there was a dead baby bunny in one of our window wells. :( So sad, he was such a baby, maybe the size of a hand.

Anyways, when Austin came home I showed him, and decided we would bury him outside. I dug a hole, and Austin got a baggie and put the poor bunny in it. I wish the cats would have meowed a bit more and alerted us to a bunny in there. George in particular absolutely LOVES to watch bunnies all day long. We bought the grates to cover the window wells for this exact reason, we didn't want to deal with poor dead animals. Guess baby bunnies fall through. Anyways, we will make it a point to check the window wells more often so this doesn't happen.

So sad. RIP baby bunny.

Root canal is finally over

I had my root canal today at noon, and it went fairly well. They numbed me up pretty good and it took a good 4 hours for it to wear off so I'm starting to feel some tenderness but apparently that is pretty normal. The procedure wasn't that bad, i mean it wasn't fun by any means but it wasn't like any of the horror stories that I have heard from other people when I told them I had to get a root canal.

So...here's hoping my tooth gets better quickly and I won't have to take any more pain medications!

Other than that, I have no news, and nothign I really want or need to write about.