It's the most wonderful time of the year...or at least a close second.

It's that time of year again: the time when my trash cans become filled with crumpled red, blue, and green foil wrappers, and the sweet, sweet nectar of Cadbury Eggs tickles my tastebuds. I look forward to this every year, and I can't help but be excited when I catch my first glimpse of a Cadbury display in the stores. It's also somewhat convenient that my birthday lies right in the midst of Cadbury Egg season because I tend to get showered with beautifully wrapped 4-packs. It's one time when getting repeat gifts is not only acceptable, but desired! Paul of course takes the cake for Cadbury egg gifting for going to the extent of ordering European Cadbury Eggs off of ebay for me during the off-season. I was a bit nervous they were going to be poisoned at first, but they're all long gone, and I'm still alive, thankfully.

Now, these days, Cadbury has come out with a number of varieties like the mini eggs or the ones with chocolate in the center or carmel, and other companies have tried to copy the deliciousness, but there is just no comparison to the original, life-sized, milk chocolate egg with the sugary heavenlike yolk. Snickers eggs are a good attempt, but that's only because they're a snickers in a different shape.

I've always wondered why Cadbury doesn't sell Cadbury eggish things throughout the whole year, like Peeps does. They could easily make a chocolate Christmas tree, four-leafed clover or Jack-o-Latern with the same tasty filling, but they opt to keep the eggs as a seasonal item. In a way, I'm glad that it's the way it is. Otherwise, maybe Cadbury Eggs would lose a bit of their magic. Having them all year round might just lead to people taking them for granted, like they were any other candy bar. So, in the case of Cadburys, I guess the old addage holds true -- absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

Stolen from a Stealer

I took this from Katie's blog, and Katie took it from someone else, but as all teachers/ex-teachers know, it's okay to steal a good idea. So, click on the link below and pick some words that you think describe me. This is my way of finding out what other people think of me without having to go on reality television. :)

my johari window

Burg(h)ers without Buns

The other day, a girl I was eating lunch with had a plain hamburger with no bun. The sight of the juicy burger being dipped in ketchup prompted my response of "mmm...burgers without buns." After I said it, I realized it kind of has the same ring to it as something like Doctors without Borders. That's when I decided that Burg(h)ers without Buns will be a group dedicated to Pittsburgh women with flat butts, like me! Whether their flat butt is hereditary, as mine is (thanks, mom!) or a result of many years of many days of many hours of sitting in a chair to perform a mundane desk job (thanks, secretarial employers), it doesn't matter. Any Pittsburgh lady with not so much junk in her trunk can join. What the group has to offer to society aside from a welcome break from honkeytonk badonkadonks is yet to be determined.

Because I haven't posted in awhile...or is it a while?

4 jobs I've had:
1. Offline captioner
2. Counselor at Urban Impact
3. Baker at Bruegger's Bagels
4. Cashier at Carmike Cinemas (my favorite ever)

4 movies I could watch over and over:
1. A League of Their Own
2. When Harry Met Sally
3. The Sandlot
4. The Wedding Planner -- I don't even like this one that much, but it's just an easy one to watch over and over.

4 places I've vacationed:
1. Historic Brookville, PA
2. New York, New York
3. Marco Island, FL (don't go)
4. Ocean City, NJ

4 shows I love:
1. Everybody Loves Raymond (a newfound love)
2. Family Guy
3. The [bleep] van [bleep] show -- if you watch the above show, you know what I mean
4. Quantum Leap

4 places I've lived: (nothing exciting here)
1. Peters Township
2. Bethel Park
3. Grove City
4. Pittsburgh's North Side

4 favorite dishes:
1. any kind of meat that's been slow-cooked and smothered in gravy or bbq sauce
2. birthday cake ice cream from Coldstone Creamery
3. bethel bakery cake
4. the whole carbohydrate section of the food pyramid

4 places I'd rather be:
1. in bed
2. at a Chinese restaurant reading a fortune cooking and adding "in bed" to the end of it
3. at the beach
4. in the showcase showdown of The Price is Right

4 people I'm tagging:
are there even four people who read this?

Just Breathe

I have issues with people that sing like they're running out of air on purpose. Let's take Jessica Simpson and her new Pizza Hut commercial, for instance. A pizza with removable cheesy bites for a crust is really not sexy, no matter how much you try to make it that way, so can we please cut out the panting, Jess?

If this is some kind of musical style that is appealing, I just don't get it. Jessica does the "attempting to sound sexy" breathiness, but there are other singers I've heard that just sound like they purposefully breathe really hard in between musical phrases for no apparent reason. It doesn't make me want to listen more. On the contrary, it makes me want to turn down the volume and get them an oxygen tank. To me, a good voice is strong and clear, not raspy and full of air. I know that music is a very subjective thing and different people like different sounds, but this is just one aspect I don't think I can budge on. If you want to make music, do me a favor and remember to breathe.

Poking and Prodding

Medical tests received today: urine examination, blood test, chest x-ray, one "say aah", many requests for deep breaths, weight measurement with a few pounds removed due to wearing my shoes ( the nurse made the disclaimer, not me ), a few temperature readings, and much poking and prodding of my painful side.

Medical tests still to be performed: abdominal ultrasound

All of this plus buying a razor, shave gel, water, and tissues, and shaving my legs in my car in the CVS parking lot due to winter shaving laziness and unexpected doctor's appointment led to an interesting and un-fun day.

P.T. 2000

When I was in middle school, I entered a competition called Invention Convention, which is basically what its name describes -- a convention where kids bring their inventions and are judged on their creativity, usefulness, and all that jazz. When I signed up to do Invention Convention, I don't think that I had any world-changing, life-altering thing in mind to invent. I think I just wanted an easy day off of school. As a result of my lacksidasical attitude, I brought to the I.C. the simplest invention I could think of -- The P.T. 2000. The concept was for it to be a pet translator. You would put this contraption on your pet's head, and somehow it would translate whatever your pet was thinking into English. At its roots, the P.T. 2000 was a glorified baseball hat. I don't think I even tried to create a translator screen or showcase different sizes for hamsters or Great Danes. I took an old hat, stuck a label on it, and cashed in my
get-out-of-school-free card.

Needless to say, I was awarded no prize for my so-called invention that day. I mean, how could any judge award a blue ribbon to a pink and yellow baseball hat with an index card slapped on it when some young Rube Goldberg has shown up with a robot that calculates the air pressure while making scrambled eggs and doing the rhumba? I was a loser from the get-go, but ten years later, after giving it much thought, I still contend that if it could be done, it'd be pretty dang sweet to know what your pet is thinking.

Waiting on Chicken

I've never been much of a cook. Grove City didn't allow us to be grown-ups and live in apartments where we had access to such luxuries as ovens, stoves, large refrigerators, etc., so I didn't really get the chance to hone my skills during my college years. Most people like to joke about how they can't cook and say that the only thing they can make is a TV dinner. For me, that was basically true, and I was okay with it. On breaks, my diet consisted mainly of Stouffer's stuffed pepper TV dinners, and macaroni (pasta, to those of you who might think I mean macaroni and cheese). Now that I have a 135 pound husband to fatten up, cooking has become a part of my daily life, but I'm still not that great at it, nor do I understand it. I can follow a recipe and usually have it turn out alright, but there is absolutely no ad-libbing or room for creativity at all. If Betty Crocker demands 1 1/4 cups of milk, then 1 1/4 cups of milk she will get. And that's the way it is. Don't get me wrong -- I don't mind conforming to a master chef's ideal proportions. One thing that does bother me, though, is that meals never seem to cook as fast as they're supposed to. Right now, I'm waiting on chicken cacciatore, but after the 10 minutes of recommended simmering time, the chicken is still pale and slimy. Thus, the motto of the story is, Betty Crocker might know the difference between a dash and a pinch, but she sure as heck can't tell time.

I must be dreaming

Just a short post because I have to get ready for work, but I can't help but address the fact that I am currently watching Roseanne Barr dressed in a poodle skirt, pink cowboy hat and braided pigtails singing about a donut farm. That just has to be someone's worst nightmare.

DTMs Make Hollywood Comeback

So, is it just me, or do a lot of Hollywood actors seem to be growing dirty mustaches? And by "a lot of Hollywood actors," I mean George Eads, who plays Nick on CSI, and Bryan Dattilo, who plays Lucas on Days of Our Lives. They are both good-looking guys without mustaches, so I can't really see the need to grow one, especially one that's kind of scraggly and only half there. In case you don't know who they are, here are pictures of each of them, sans mustaches.
Now, because I can't find any pictures of them with their mustaches, here is my rendition.


They look pretty much like that, except worse. Very Super Mario/child molester, eh?

Selective Coverage

Since the Steelers won the AFC Championship game, the Pittsburgh news channels have been covering every story that has anything even remotely having to do with anything Steelers. A toy cannon that shoots black and gold confetti? Sure, we'll do a special report on that. A two-year-old child named Seven after Ben Roethlisberger? Yeah, that sounds like a top story, alright.
It's great that the Steelers won, but what happened to the real news? Wendy Bell totally neglected to tell me about the two mining accidents yesterday that raised WV's death toll to 16 miners in the past month, and during any other week, that would probably be the first thing I heard when I turned on the TV.
It's just kind of interesting to see the media's ability to 1. sort of pick and choose what people are informed about and 2. make any piece of information into a headline just by putting the right spin on it. That will probably ease my worry a little bit the next time I hear about a terrorist threat or the bird flu plague.