Join Me?

Day 8

With class completed Rudy and I have time to do a little sightseeing. I wanted to go see the Casa Bonita of South Park fame for my kids who wanted photos and to see The Brown Palace Hotel where my parents stayed on their honeymoon in December of 1957.

After sleeping in a bit we fired up St. Brendan {our gps. St. Brendan is a Navigator Saint} and made our way to the Casa. Overpriced bad food and campy entertainment was the theme. The sopaipillas for dessert were quite yummy. We ate, watched the bad entertainment, took some photos, choose souvenirs for the dog sitter and the kid and beat feet out of there.

The haphazard parking that was taking place when we arrived at Casa Bonita had turned into quite the spectacle when we returned to our car. Gotta love a parking lot with no lines where people just pull in and stop where they please. *rolling eyes*

After a couple of wrong/missed turns because St. Brendan didn't speak up quickly enough I pulled out my iPhone and mapped our location. We discovered that we were very close to The Brown Palace and decided to put the car in a lot by the shopping and walk in.

We happily took a side trip into the bookstore as it is one of our favorite places to go and browsed for a bit before heading out in search of the Palace. We knew it was on a corner and a triangular shape and headed towards what appeared to be just that. Come to find out - it wasn't. WTF, people. That is just one too many triangular brown buildings in one small area. Turning around and heading to in the right direction we were soon at the Brown Palace.

We wandered in and looked around. I headed off to see if anyone would have some nice words and perhaps some sentimental souvenirs that I could bring back to my daddy. The desk clerk I spoke with was an ass and said he supposed he could offer me a couple of pens. He handed them to me and looked at me as if I should kiss his feet. Nice PR work there buddy. So not impressed and your boss will be hearing from me.

We did find a gorgeous photograph history book and a chocolate bar which I will be bringing to Daddy along with the pens. I am sure he will love them and I will keep the ridiculous treatment I received to myself rather than sully his memory of the place where he and his beloved wife spent their honeymoon.

Leaving the Brown Palace behind we realized that we were in need of a cup of coffee. {yeah yeah, so when am I not, eh? Well don't you judge me. tee hee} We grabbed some Starbucks and sat outside to people watch, rest and enjoy our drinks.

The rest of our afternoon was filled with stopping into The Hard Rock Cafe to get a couple of shot glasses {way too crowded/busy to even consider getting a drink}, a quick side trip to Panera for some baked goods for breakfast {they have a wickedly delicious orange scone} which will save us needing to get up and schlepp down to the overcrowded breakfast room and will allow for sleeping in. We came back to the room to relax but did go out one final time to the Village Inn for breakfast for dinner.

Back to the room for good found us surfing the web on our iPads using the fancy connection dealio that Rudy set up on his MacBook and flipping channels to find something to watch. And then he discovered Kill Bill Vol.1 was on.

Cut to 3 am where blondie is still awake because the morning person got super tired, powered through it and then looped around and couldn't sleep after Vol.2 of Kill Bill and Rudy snoring away.

Tomorrow -
Last day in Denver. Last day with Rudy. I hate this part. meh!

Happy Sunday.
love,
~ b

Day 5

Ever so quiet.

As my FB status stated early on I am either suffering from a severe lack of coffee or oxygen or both. Not a lot going on for me today other than chilling out, napping and reading.

When Rudy got out of class we headed over to Panera to pick up some broccoli cheese soup and bread bowls to eat in our room later on when we were hungry. More napping and relaxing was the tone of our evening.

Tomorrow will be more of the same unless I feel incredibly better and by better I mean less tired and needing oxygen and more feeling like getting out and doing something. Although I do want to get outside and take some photos of the prairie dogs and perhaps I will see the bunnies we saw the other day as well as the duck couple. And it has been perhaps too long since I have had a trip to starbucks. ;-) {Don't you judge me. tee hee!} There is also drinks at BJ's after class to meet with people from the local office.

See ya tomorrow.

love,
~ b

Today's Adventure:

Two Blondes and a Mechanical Engineer build a fence.

It could get quite comical real fast around here.

Stay tuned for updates. Maybe even a photo or two.

Happy Tuesday Wednesday.

Thursday Thirteen:

things I need to do.

1. put away the groceries. They are still on the counter where I put them when I got home an hour ago.
2. savour my grande non-fat easy whip pumpkin spice latte.
3. check countdown timer {again} to see how many days until I pick Rudy up from the airport.
4. weed my garden - what a freakin jungle that is.
5. finish the loser trophy for our Fantasy Football League and ship it to the loser.
6. upload disc 3 and 4 from the 5 Love Languages book for Rudy to pass on to his son.
7. make beds.
8. drink more coffee.
9. find a word worth enough points to score big and win my Words With Friends game against Rudy.
10. sweep floors.
11. watch The Tudors on Netflix.
12. finish this list.
13. figure out why the HELL I think today is Friday.

Convince me otherwise.

I Am

Wordless Wednesday.

Whatcha got?

{HT to Rudy for the great graphic}
{click it to big it}

Thursday Thirteen:

Iced -
A Conversation in 13 Lines

1. Me: Is this the only way Iced VIA comes?
2. Starbucks Girl: Yes it is.
3. Starbucks Girl: Why do you ask?
4. Starbucks Girl: Do you like it really sweet?
5. Me: Oh dear no. I like my iced coffee with no sweet at all.
6. Starbucks Girl: Yeah, me too.
7. Starbucks Girl: You can take the regular VIA and make it iced though.
8. Me: Seriously?
9. Me: I didn't know it would dissolve properly in the non hot water.
10. Starbucks Girl: Yes, yes it will.
11. Starbucks Girl: I do it all the time.
12. Me: --> Starbucks Girl *fist bump*
13. Me: Thanks so much.

Now here is my real problem with the Iced VIA. {see photo above} Not only does the Iced Via not come plain and by plain I mean with out sugar added but it also has a serving size of 1/2 a pkg. Now how is that helpful? So you THINK your iced coffee is going to cost you 50 calories but in reality you will drink the entire pkg worth and it will cost you 100. That is pretty Bastardly, imho.

No Starbucks Iced VIA for this Blondie. That is for certain.

p.s. There is a new poll on the sidebar.

Unexpectedly Expected now with New Pancakes!

So The Marrieds passed through town late Friday evening on their way to visit CS for Father's Day. Don't worry. No one has actually missed Father's Day. They made their trip a week early because they are busy next weekend when it is really Father's Day. The plan I was told, when they stopped by to say Hi, was that they would stop by again on Saturday evening on their way back home.

When 10 PM rolled around and I still hadn't heard from them I had the kid phone to see what was up with that. He did and discovered that they had only just left and would be here in under and hour. The kid then stated that they would want to spend the night since it was already going to be so late when they got here. I countered that they would not as I knew that they wanted to wake up at home this morning and get things done around the house.

Just before 11 I hear keys in the door. Struggling keys in the door. It actually sounded like they were having a battle with the keys and the keys were winning. After several attempts to get the door open in comes Mrs. Married, giggling and laughing as I ask her if she was having key/door problems. She then looks straight at me with her tired look and says "Can we stay at your house tonight? I'm tired." LMAO! Did the kid call it or what? Good thing I didn't bet him, eh? Which I rarely do because I always lose.

It is about 10 minutes after 9 now. I am, not surprisingly, the only one up. Well, unless you count the kitties, which I do. They were the first ones up and spent half an hour trying to get me to get up and feed them. But I digress. I have made coffee and am waiting for the house to wake. We are having Pancakes and vegetarian bacon aka facon for breakfast. mmmmm. The pancake recipe I am using is new to The Marrieds but the kid and I think we have finally found one that is pretty dang close to Ihops. If we are lucky Mrs. Married will treat us to another episode of *How to determine which is cup is coffee and which is syrup*. That is a story she will never outrun. It isn't a long story and the punch line is always the same. "Hey Mrs. Married, Remember the time you poured coffee instead of syrup on your pancakes?" She will then remind you that she mistook the coffee cup for the syrup cup because she hadn't yet had enough coffee. Good times. Good times.

I love Ihops. They have the best pancakes. I love pancakes. If you are lucky you live in a land where you can get Ihops pancakes 24 hours a day. Sadly I do not. You can't even get seated in my Ihops if you show up at 9:35 PM. {is that what time it was, darlin? } But that is a story for another day.

After hearing someone's blaring nuclear attack iPhone alarm go off 3 times I finally actually detect movement. That will be Mr. Married I am guessing. It probably wasn't even his alarm that got him up but rather the fact that I have sneezed about a dozen times in the past 3 minutes. heh! Whatever works, right?

How's your Sunday?
Love and Hugs,
~ b

Wordy Wednesday.

Coffee.
Close your eyes.
Listen to the melodious sounds as the coffee begins to drip into the carafe.
Your nose begins to tickle as the delightful aroma begins a seductive dance.
Reach out carefully to accept the cup that is being placed in your hands.
Your mouth beings to water as the warmth fuses with the swirling intoxicating bouquet.
Unable to resist any longer you lift the cup to your mouth and drink of the elixir you so crave.
Quietly sighing.
Gratifying.
Coffee.

{©blondie16~2010}

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Thursday Thirteen

Grocery shopping by the numbers.

1. 13 cans of cat food. {plus two more but who's counting. This isn't Thursday 15. heh!}
2. 12 cans vanilla coke.
3. 11 plastic grocery bags filled.
4. 10 bottles Lemon Vitamin water.
5. 9 ounce box fruit snacks.
6. 8 ounces whipped cream cheese. {the marrieds are stopping by this weekend and have promised to bring me fresh homemade bagels. The last time they brought me some they ended up being furry. And greenish. I don't care for that so much.
7. 7 ounce box Sweet and Salty Peanut Granola Bars.
8. 6 cans V-8 V-Fusion Pomegranate Blueberry Juice.
9. 5 minutes away - grocery is located.
10. 4 almost ripened bananas.
11. 3 cans chicken noodle soup. Not that low sodium crap either. That is not good.
12. 2 Pumpkin flavoured items from Starbucks as a reward for getting the shopping finished up. Pumpkin Spice Latte and a Pumpkin Scone. mmmm
13. 1 Self Rising Crust DiGiorno. It's not Delivery. It's DiGiorno. and also yummy. And hella cheaper than delivery.

Wordless Wednesday.

You’re Gonna Love My Nuts.*

It is so early to be up on a Saturday. Not only up but dressed, make-up’d and having ventured into the outside world and back already. Yes. I am one of *those* people. You know the ones. They get up early and are moving fluidly as soon as their feet touch the floor. The Morning Person. That would be me.

I just spent the last two days without hot water and waiting for the plumber to fix the ailing hot water heater. Because I was waiting for the guy and the fix I did not get my errands run as I normally do. The good news is that it is somehow still under warranty so the part cost me nothing more than overnight shipping. We won’t get into the service calls charge. I am trying to just be happy that they only charged me for two when the guy was actually here three times.

Ok. So what does all that have to do with nuts? Pretty much nothing other than I treated my morning person self to a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice latté and a Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin after I left the grocery. As you look at the picture of the pumpkiny cream cheesy goodness you may notice the little dark spots. Those are nuts. I noticed them too.


I popped the muffin into the micro after I had the groceries put away and settled down on the sofa to enjoy my latté and muffin. Which I totally did. Until I took a bite that had a nut in it. And quickly ejected said nut. That nut was not a walnut, which is what I had assumed it was. Upon closer examination I discovered that the nut was not a nut at all but rather a seed. A pumpkin seed. I don’t like pumpkin seeds. At all. Using my fork I removed the remainder of the seeds and continued to enjoy my pumpkin muffin. It was quite good once the offending seeds had been removed.

I probably won’t buy the Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin again. I just don’t want to work before I can enjoy my muffin. Especially when it seems that Starbucks has raised its prices. Because I never spend over $5 when I go for coffee and a pastry and today I did. {Unless I am in Alaska, of course.} That is just adding insult to injury.

You're gonna love my nuts seeds? Yeah. Not so much.

* The phrase "You're Gonna Love My Nuts" is what the guy selling the Slapchop says quite loudly on his infomercial. My daughter loves the Slapchop infomercial and will make us watch it until someone removes the clicker from her hand. Any time there is a discussion about nuts in our house that same phrase is repeated in the Slapchop guy's style.

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G'morning.