My New Guilty Pleasure

So me and the man have become hopelessly addicted to Cake Boss!! We’re pretty convinced if we watch long enough we will absorb some of their creativity and skill and be able to open our own bakery

Yeah… just kidding… but we do love LOVE L.O.V.E. that show! If you’ve never heard of it, it’s on TLC uh maybe Monday nights-ish… (I’m so bad about knowing when stuff comes on due to the wonderful invention of DVRs).

Basically it’s about an Italian family in Hoboken, New Jersey who run a bakery as their family business… it’s been in their family forever. They dream up the most creative, crazy cakes you’ve ever seen! 

Someone told us that we needed to watch another cake show “Ace of Cakes”… yeah tried it and just haven’t fallen in love.  There’s something about the crazy Italians that make Cake Boss much more entertaining. There’s always some little family controversy and a LOUD crazy Italian screaming fight going on to keep you interested. And I think their cakes are much more amazing!!

So if you’d like to add another addiction to your plate, check The Cake Boss out! Why? Cuz “I’m the boss!” hehe

The Melting Pot

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, in a land far far away people would go to a restaurant, pick an entree and pay for a cook to actually prepare the meal for them to consume… long gone are those days!

NOW you can go to a restaurant, cook your own meal, and pay THEM!

That’s exactly what we did this past weekend. Daniel, Brian, and Crystal took me to The Melting Pot in Atlanta for my birthday. It’s basically a fondue restaurant. I broke down the whole process for you in case you’re bored and looking for some riveting internet content! haha

1) You pick a cheese… lots to choose from. A lot I couldn’t pronounce so we went with something uh… pronounce-able

2) They bring out a little pot that goes on a flat-surface burner in the middle of your table.

(Sidebar – he was required to tell us every time he came to our table to NOT touch the burner! I told him it was probably a good idea because you could just see the wheels turning in Daniel and Brian’s head… I’m pretty sure they were thinking it was a challenge!)

Anyway, they bring out the cheese and seasonings, put it all in the pot and melt it. They bring all kinds of different breads, veggies, and apples you dip in the cheese. My favorite was some kind of honey wheat bread and the apples! YUM

3) After we had stuffed ourselves full of bread… our server stole our cheese pot. And then brought out some kind of broth in a different pot. He brought out platters of raw shrimp, filet mignon, chicken, tuna, and sirloin steak. Yeap I said it… RAW!! They also brought out all kinds of vegetables and potatoes.

This is where looks became very deceiving. That little pot of broth must have been 793 degrees because everything cooked in about 2-3 minutes. You skewed up whatever you wanted, dropped it in the broth, and magically it was perfect in just a few minutes. The only problem was… we weren’t so good with the timing. No one told us to each bring a stop watch… so we spent a lot of time asking… “uh what time did I put that in?” BUT no one was sick the next day so apparently we sufficiently cooked everything

Can I just say that the shrimp and the filet mignon were absolutely amazing?! Everything soaked up the flavors from the broth and was extremely yummy!!

4) Oh dessert… pretty sure I’ll be dreaming about this dessert for months to come. We picked a chocolate that had crunchy peanut butter in it. Turned out to be an excellent choice. Our server brought out platters of strawberries, bananas, pound cake, brownies, marshmallows, cheesecake, and rice krispy treats! I’m just not sure if it gets any better than that.

So yeap… it was a great time, absolutely great food and even better company!!! Pretty sure it won’t be our last experience with The Melting Pot!!

Weekend Update

Fun weekend… I’ll try to keep it short and not ramble too much!

Friday night Crystal took me to see My Sister’s Keeper for my birthday. Great movie, but have to say I was a little disappointed. I had just finished reading the book the week before and they did NOT stick to the book. They dropped a lot of interesting story lines and completely changed the ending! I was SHOCKED!!! Still the movie was pretty good… really sad and a lot of nasty crying was going on in the theater, not just tears but audible, snot dripping sobbing!

Saturday Daniel and I SLEPT IN!!! YAYAYYA!!! Then went to see Ice Age 3 with Brian, Crystal, and Caleb… hysterical movie! As always the best part is the squirrel! He falls in love and leaves the acorn! Poor little acorn… so lonely

THEN… I knew Daniel had something planned for my birthday for Saturday night and he did a great job keeping it a secret. So we get in the car and drive off to somewhere… he plugs in the address on his GPS and off we go… so we turned like we were going to Brian and Crystal’s house so I get all excited and asked him if they’re going too… of course he lies and says that there’s plenty of places in McDonough we could be eating! Yay… whoopee!! McDonough!!! [yeah I'm being completely sarcastic]

Anyways, we DO end up picking up Brian and Crystal. And go somewhere way more special than McDonough!! They take me to The Melting Pot! YAY I’ve always wanted to go there and it definitely lived up to my expectations! I’ll post more about what exactly The Melting Pot is later this week… I’ll just say that it’s a completely different dining experience

After that we went back to Brian and Crystal’s to play some games and hang out! Stayed up WAY too late but of course Crystal and me dominated the games so it was worth it!!!

Sunday we did the whole church thing. I almost had a complete meltdown in the middle of the service because for some reason our video-taped pastor decided to freeze up with 10 minutes left of his sermon AND right in the middle of a story! Yeah that made me want to throw up a little…

Went to Olive Garden to celebrate mine and Rachel’s birthdays after church and then had an incredible nap I always have great naps after Olive Garden! haha

I’m Tiffany Mead and that was your weekend update!

The Great Mouse Debacle

So everyone stop and congratulate me. I’ll wait…

 

Thanks… you say “what for?” Well you see what happened was… (I’m goofy today, aren’t I?)

As you might remember from my October post… we had a little issue with a mouse family who just loved our house, moved in, and started “redecorating” my kitchen. We set up a bunch of death traps and ”evicted” the little family.

So apparently the little mouse family told their relatives (before they were “evicted”) that we had a gorgeous little house that they would LOVE… so they decided to take up resident while we were at camp! So once again we covered my kitchen in glue traps and seemed to have evicted yet another mouse family!!

So… you’re congratulating me because this weekend… wait        for        it…          we’re removing all of the death traps from the kitchen!! YAYYAYAYA 

Disclaimer: I’m really a very good housekeeper and most days you would not necessarily find food and crud all over my kitchen to attract mice! It’s still a baffling mystery to me why mice seem to love us sooo much

Me and My Lists

Yeap… might have noticed I started a Bucket List page… Must have been inspired by my recent birthday or something…

Right now it pretty much consists of things I want to accomplish before turning 30 but I’m thinking I’ll turn it into my things to do before I kick the for real bucket! So stay tuned for that…

In the meantime if you think you can help me cross something off my list, let me know! Or if you’d like to contribute to my bucket list costs! haha

Happy Birthday to me!!

So apparently I’ve made Daniel watch one too many episodes of Cake Boss because he’s picked up some mad cake building skills!

Not only did he cook his signature steaks marinaded with some kind of AMAZING stuff, baked potato, corn on the cob, and veggies… he made a two-layered devil’s food chocolate cake with fudge icing… and then decorated a huge heart on the top with a big 29 in the middle. As if I needed to remember I’m 29! haha just kidding

It was absolutely YUMMMMMMMY!! The kind of yummy that you have to drink a tall glass of milk with! I’m seriously wishing I could run home and have some right now He’s SOOO good to me!!

Holy Crap I’m 29!!!

Okay so in honor of turning 29 today, here’s my bucket list of things to do before I kick the 30 bucket!

• Get the freakin’ pergola built! hehe
• Relax more… which I will be able to do when the pergola’s built! haha
• Teach Apollo to sleep through the night
• Teach Apollo to make it to the woods to go to the bathroom so the pergola area doesn’t smell like poo
• Fix all of the holes and other damage the dogs have done to our house
• Finish my coding certification and work from home
• Take a cruise (scheduled for Sep 09)
• Learn to live with less and give more
• Pay off our credit card debt!
• Watch My Sister’s Keeper and Ice Age 3… okay maybe that’s more of an immediate task
• Get my passport
• Go somewhere that requires a passport
• Spend more time reading in my hammock
• Learn to speedread
• Get a pair of Tom’s Shoes
• Have at least 52 date nights!!
• Go away with Daniel for a few weekends
• Be more spontaneous
• Go on a missions trip
• Visit a pottery place and make my own
• Go on the Haunted Atlanta tour, visit Fernbank, do the Behind the Scenes Tour at the Aquarium, and all of the other things us locals never get around to doing
• Visit more thrift stores
• See Wicked
• Go on a weekend retreat with God only

I’m sure there’s a million other things I’d like to do in the next year… but that’s a good start!

Weekend Update

Another relaxing weekend! Can’t believe it… that’s two in a row! WOW

• Daniel had Friday off… decided he’s not allowed to have too much downtime. Good natured Daniel turns into really bored, grumpy Daniel if left with too much time by himself SUCH a foreign concept to me!
• Friday night… went to see Year One. Yeah typical Jack Black kinda humor. Probably should have just rented that one but had some very funny parts… The weather was ABSOLUTELY the most gorgeous weather I can remember. We went to Arby’s just so we could sit outside on a patio somewhere! Then drove around for 20 minutes looking for a spot to watch the Nash Farm fireworks without having to pay admission… ended up finding a dirt access road to who knows where, backing the explorer up, wading through the shoulder high hay, and laying in the back of the explorer. Perfect location!!
• Saturday we slept in until 10 AM!!! Ridiculous but much deserved! Went over to Danny, Cindy, and Rachel’s… hung out by the pool and managed not to get burned, ate some ribs, got my butt kicked AGAIN in contract rummy, and then headed home to chill out and watch some tv.
• Sunday – church then over to the Latham’s for a pool party. Lots of fun but the weather didn’t really want to cooperate. Thank goodness they had HUGE patio umbrellas… ran a few errands and then headed home again.
• We spent a gigantic amount of time laying in bed watching tv this weekend… kinda nice to just take a little relaxation time and do nothing. Even though we probably don’t have any clean towels or clothes to wear AND my house is getting kinda nasty. Oh well… you only live once and pretty sure I won’t be laying on my death bed upset that I didn’t spend more time cleaning and laundering… haha

I’m Tiffany Mead and that was your weekend update!

An opossum made me cry…

Yeah I’m a dork… I seriously cried the other day over one of the most disgusting animals God ever graced the earth with…

I was merrily driving to work the other day and passed by a poor, little pathetic opossum who had obviously been hit by a car. Well most of him was hit by the car. He was completely smushed just behind his front legs all the way to his tail. The truly sad part was he was dragging himself using his front legs frantically trying to get out of the road. I couldn’t believe he was still alive… of course there’s no way I could muster enough courage to finish him off. I just hope the farmer dude in a pick-up truck I passed shortly after put the little guy out of his misery.

I’m just now to the point where I don’t look for him on the side of the road. I don’t particularly care for opossums but that image will not be leaving my head for awhile!

I’m getting old…

Never really been too concerned with growing older… each birthday comes and goes and I never really give it a second thought. Until THIS year… dun dun dun!!

Yeap… turning the big 29 a week from today! AGGHGHHG I don’t know why this particular “number” has caused me to pause and think, but it has. Think it might have something to do with only having one year left of my 20’s with so much left to accomplish.

So much I thought I’d accomplish before the big 3-0… don’t get me wrong I’m not disappointed with any area in particular of my life, however I can’t help but wonder if I’ll be thinking the same thing when I turn 39.

Here’s some of the random thoughts that have plagued my psyche lately (sorry for all the transparency)…

• Wonder if we’ll have a kid before I’m 30? Don’t want to be worried about broken hips and dentures by the time our kid’s in college.
• Wonder if I’ll ever go skydiving or bungee jumping or anything else ridiculously crazy
• Wonder if JourneyPointe will GROW and accomplish it’s mission to reach Luella?
• Wonder if Daniel will still be working a job that causes his knees, back, and pretty much every part of his body down to his big toe to hurt on a daily basis? Or if he’ll die from chemical poisoning or skin cancer and leave me to raise our children alone as an old woman since I’m almost 29 NOW! haha Wow… down the road a bit, aren’t I?
• Wonder if Apollo will ever be able to sleep through the night (for Daniel’s sake cuz ya’ll know I could sleep through a tornado in our bedroom and never hear the dog)?
• Wonder if I’ll EVER finish school and get to work from home?!?
• Wonder if I’ll ever truly make a difference…
• Wonder if we’ll ever get to the point where were outta debt?
• Wonder if we’ll ever get a Mac? hehe
• Wonder if we’ll ever make it to Europe…

Funny… I’ve given Daniel such a hard time about his concerns with turning 30 and now I’m worrying a whole year earlier than he did!

Here’s to making every day count cuz next thing you know a decade has passed!!