Halloween Friday

yes, i said halloween.

so today was several things at work. first off, it was incredibly busy. but more importantly, today was the 3rd annual artist pumpkin decorating contest. mine's the little guy you see in the picture up there. i wasn't planning to make a face at all, but rather to just have a design of mismatched pumpkin pieces. (i was swapping pieces back & forth between a white pumpkin and an orange pumpkin.) but then i decided it looked like he had eyebrows. so i made the eyes & then realized i didn't have a lot of room for a mouth. so i think he kinda looks like a ninja turtle vampire. i call him franklin.

today was also the employee costume contest. everyone voted for one guy & one gal "best costume". i'm pretty sure jeff will win. only about 4 guys dressed up, and jeff had 'em beat hands down. due to his uncommon height, jeff can wear just about any "scary" costume and seem scarier than anyone else wearing it. this year he was dead. or, as was the case was at our painfully slow lunch, he was "dying to eat". lots of gals were dressed up. most notably, i think, was kathy in her whoopie cushion costume. although she looked like a big stomach from the back, she was definitely a whoopie cushion - sound effects and all. i was, of course, a pirate. april was a nerd. and paula even joined the fun dressing up as a flapper. there were more, but those were the important ones. we'll hear on monday who won the vote.

and of course, no halloween is complete without small children parading about & asking for candy. so all work pretty much halted at 3pm as a good chunk of the employees brought their kids in to beg for sugar. best costumes? patti's girls - maya with her mommy-made butterfly wings, and elly as a sparkly purple unicorn. dave's little boy davey made a pretty adorable spider, too.

curious to see the day for yourself? check out the photos here. the pumpkins are named by artist - for those of you who know the artists. :) oh, and kathy's shrek pumpkin won. jeff's mummy came in second.

top 10 tuesday!

welcome to the first "top 10 tuesday" at bluehighlights.com. every tuesday i'll be bringing you a list of the top 10 somethings or someones. and YOU can give me YOUR top 10 list in the comments. because that's what makes it fun.

top 10 places in the united states i want to visit, but never have
10. las vegas.
9. the everglades.
8. the alamo.
7. the bad lands in south dakota.
6. boston. i don't know why, but definitely boston.
5. maine. preferably on a steel gray foggy day. looking out at a slate color ocean.
4. the grand canyon.
3. key west. i want to drive that bridge.
2. boundary waters of minnesota to see the northern lights.
1. highway 1 all along the california coast. i drove part of it in oregon, but i want to see it in california.

common ground

i believe that eggs & pizza crust have a lot more in common than we give them credit for.

both taste gross in their un-cooked state, for example. but even better... together they may quite possibly be the glue that holds all good (food related) things together.

for example: you can have a taco, and you can have a taco pizza. you can have thai food, and you can have a thai chicken pizza. you can have a blt sandwich, and you can have a blt pizza. basically, anything good can be made better by putting on a pizza crust & baking to perfection.

the same holds true with eggs. just this morning, i had a roast beef sandwich omelette. scoff not, ye unlearned omelette eaters. cut up a little roast beef, a few pepperoncinis and slide in a slice of provolone cheese just before you fold it... mmmmmmm. roast beef omelette. mexican omelettes are good. and garden omelettes. and polish sausage omelettes.

glue, i tell you. the ultimate, tasty, perfect-food-binding glue. pizza crust & eggs.

family & birthdays

my family celebrates birthdays. usually it's done on the closest sunday to the actual birthday, and whoever is the birthday guy/gal chooses dinner & dessert. well, tomorrow is my new sister's birthday. and while she's in colorado, those of us here decided to celebrate her birthday today. so we had her favorite meal (green spaghetti) and her favorite dessert (tiramisu).

green spaghetti is not gross. it's actually a yummy spinach & cheese cream sauce. delicious. although i'd love to know what it tastes like with a good chunk of basil thrown in there, too. mmm... basil.

so the tiramisu...

yeah, none of us have ever tasted it before, so we're not sure if it tasted "right" or not. but it tasted good, that's for sure. and most of us aren't real big coffee fans. but still, it was good. i think it had too much whipped cream on it, but i can easily change that next time.

and speaking of next time - we're going to try swapping out the coffee for hot cocoa. mmm... chocolate.

catch up...

so it seems i've been playing catch up a lot with my blog lately. this should bring everything up to date.

last weekend i went on a fantastic, but quick, roadtrip with my mom. we covered about 2200 miles in less than 4 days, driving to colorado & back over a long weekend. when jonathan & laure packed their vehicle to head home after the wedding, they realized they couldn't fit all their stuff. so i volunteered to pack up my car & bring it out to them. if any of you didn't know before that i love to drive - now you know. :) so we packed my car & drove to colorado.

on the way out, we visited what is probably the coolest (or only cool) thing in nebraska - car henge. it's just north of this little town called alliance, and it's basically a replica of stone henge. except it's made with cars. apparently some guys got together at a family reunion one year & decided this was the thing to do. photos are here. we got there right at dusk, so excuse the poor lighting. while car henge is, in fact, very cool - the billboards leading you to it are very... well.. misleading. so it took us longer to get there than it should have. but the roads to get there had some fantastic scenery. who new nebraska could be so pretty?

yes, i really just said nebraska was pretty. amazing, i know. but i guess there really may be something good in nebraska.

we got to jonathan & laure's on sunday around lunchtime. we went out for lunch & then headed up into the rocky mountain national park. gorgeous. photos from that are here.

the ride home was fairly uneventful. although i think iowa may have strange laws about (or against) billboards.

and i think that catches everything up. oh! on wednesday i saw jean & elizabeth driving near my work. i waved - but you were already past me, so i doubt you noticed. but i tried. :)

oh, and wedding photos... maybe i'll put some of those online, too. that could be nice, eh? the photographer has the proofs online for everyone's viewing/ordering pleasure.

mary, mary, quite contrary...

how does your garden grow?

photos from my last trip to mary's garden, the afternoon before our first frost. a little too breezy for steady flower photos, but i did my best. :)

louisville zoo

alright, so back to louisville...


on saturday dan & i went back to the art fair. when mel got off work, the three of us went for dinner, which provided us with some good high-schoolers-going-to-homecoming viewing, and then we headed to the movies.

observations about the movie:
A. movies are over priced.
2. it wasn't as good as i had hoped.

after church on sunday, we headed to the zoo - also over priced, but a good time. there's a few photos here, if you're interested. my favorite part? definitely the wart hogs. the boy wart hog was totally cheesing it up for the camera.

i'm in colorado

yeah... so i never finished back-blogging about my trip to louisville. but just to keep people up to date... i'm colorado. yay. :)

friday in louisville

i mentioned i needed to do some back-blogging about this past weekend...


i spent this past weekend with my friends dan & malissa. i drove down early friday morning and after a yummy lunch of california pizza kitchen (yay for national pizza month), mel & i headed for the st. james court art show in historic louisville.

but first we swung by the kentucky center to visit their art*o*mat machine. my first art*o*mat experience. just slip in the five dollar bill... pull the lever of your choice... and plunk! it's pocket-sized art bliss. like a kid in a candy shop i ate it up. my little slice of fine art goodness? a ceramic face which will join ninja ned in standing guard over my desk at work. (they're changing the floor plan at work this weekend... so until i'm at my new desk, my art*o*mat goody will stay safely in his box.) for april i got a photo of irish horses mounted on a wood block. and malissa got a folk art sculpture of a toucan with some rocks for him to stand on. good stuff, people. good stuff.

and the art fair was good, too. :) lots and lots of artsy fun. metal, sculpture, ceramics, photography, glass, painting, wood... it was all there. the only thing i found strange was all the fair food available. i mean, i know people needed to eat. but i couldn't bring myself to eat a greasy corn dog or funnel cake and then walk around & thumb through photographs or inspect hand carved wooden vases. i did break down and buy a bottle of water, but even that seemed risky. the artwork was simply gorgeous.

overload, yo

so i have got some serious back-blogging to do. i had a fantastic weekend with dan & malissa, and i've got the pictures to prove it. a good illustrated review will be coming soon. plus some new photos from mary's garden that i took on monday. i'll do my best to get that all done before leaving for colorado this weekend. and after that i'll have even more to show. roadtrips rock, yo.

october goodies

october is...

- billiard awareness month: be aware, billiard tables are everywhere!

- celebrate sun dried tomatoes month: mmmmmmmm.

- national book month, chili month, cookie month, pizza month, popcorn poppin' month, pork month, roller skating month, and toilet tank repair month.

october 6 - lee national denim day. wear 'em proud, folks. we love our jeans!

october 8 - world egg day.

october 16 - dictionary day.

october 21 - national day of concern about young people & gun violence

october 23 - make a difference day

october 30 - make a great funeral day.

honest, i don't make this stuff up. celebrate october!