Weekend of Cars, Cooking, and Cuddling...

Hello everyone! I hope you had a wonderful weekend! I had a great one.
On Friday I went out on a date with my Dad. We went to Margarita’s Mexican restaurant and to the car show. I swear we have never had as much fun at the car show as we did this year. We have gone every year since we moved to Omaha. This year, we went by ourselves as Seth had to work and Mom had officially given up on the car show experience (she tries so hard every year to get into it but just can’t-at least she tried!). I think I had more fun this year just because I got a chance to hang out with my Dad. We had a lot of good laughs.
On Saturday I woke up around 11 and started cooking. I got EVERYTHING made and was done cooking by about 6. Pam came over and helped around 3. Seth randomly stopped by and helped reach bowls or cut onions, mostly though he cleaned and worked on computers. Dan and Kathy came by around 7 and ate some enchi’s and my parents stopped by around 8 and finished up the “guest pans” (pans that I had made because I knew people were coming over). Everything turned out REALLY good with only one tray of cookies as causality. Here are the lessons I learned this weekend:
Move up the bottom oven rack off the bottom of the oven-then your cookies won’t have black bottoms and soft tops.
Vanilla pudding in your chocolate chip cookie dough really does make them soft!
Cleaning up (like all the way up, washing pans and running the dishwasher, wiping down counters) BEFORE you start the next dish really helps you refocus on what you are doing.
Kittens are decidedly NOT good kitchen helpers.
Pam and Seth are decidedly VERY good kitchen helpers.

I’m still waiting on reviews of the food that was tasted, but all and all I think it was a success, everyone cleaned their plates. I think the Black Bean/Corn/Cheese enchi’s need a little something more, but I haven’t figured out what. Maybe more cheese? I also learned that Seth loves the cheese mix and wants it on his chicken enchi’s next time-but I think he just loves cheese.
On Sunday we just relaxed, Seth worked a little and fixed some more stuff on the computers. I gave my DVR the much needing cleaning off that it desired! I took an early bath and read a huge chunk of my book and finally finished “Even After All this time” which I think ended kind of meh. It was such a good book up until this part. Since it was an autobiography, it felt like she hadn’t’ gotten far enough in her life to write a good ending, you know? The last couple of chapters seemed like a blog where you tell the world about your weekend.-when the first part of the book was very indepth about her struggle trying to live in America and fleeing Iran, it just didn’t seem like it fit. Still a very good and informative book. I give it 3 out of 5 stars.
Tonite we are having dinner with Pam and Jason at Ruby Tuesday’s. I’m pretty excited about it. We are FINALLY going to hear all about their great trip to Hawaii and eat some awesome food.
This weekend is the WEEKEND OF ROMANCE at the Hellbusch household so that’s pretty exciting. So far we plan on eating the food from the WEEKEND OF COOKING (this weekend) and watching our Band of Brother’s DVD that we just ordered. I know it’s not romantic in the true sense of the word. But its romance to us to just spend time together uninterrupted. We are even shutting off one of the cell phones, or at least leaving it upstairs. Which is going to be SO HARD FOR ME! But it’s going to be a really good time.
Hope that you all are having a GREAT Monday and you are being safe in the snow (if you are reading this from Nebraska where it is currently snowing like crazy)!!
Love to you all!!
Carrie

*insert title here* or blogging with bloggers block

What do you do when you have blog block?

I’ve been trying to think of topics all morning to inspire me to write, but nothing is coming.
I’m teetering on the edge of crabby and perfectly pleasant. It’s a thin ledge.

Plenty of things have happened to me today to illicit the crabby. I have made a list of thus so far:

1) Bagheera, in a desperate move to receive the affection he is so greatly STARVED of in the morning jumped into my lap and tried to reenact a 6 year old African tribal girl’s worst nightmare while I was trying to pee. Needless to say I have a pretty unexplainable scratch in my lady parts.
2) I couldn’t figure out what to wear so I after minutes of hemming and hawing I grabbed a shirt that now almost five hours into wearing it is decidedly TOO SMALL for me. I’ve spent half the day pulling it down from around my boobs and holding the sleeves over my wrists while the buttons hang on for dear life.
3) Bagheera got mad that Seth didn’t clean the cat pan last night after his squirt fest so he decided since we took the cat pan out of our bedroom, the pile of Seth’s gym clothes and shoes in the corner was the PERFECT place to pop a squat. Seth caught him mid stream.
4) Now I have to do laundry tonite.
5) And clean the carpet.
6) Today is “Chili Feed” at lunch today and I brought a beautiful perfect cornbread Johnny cake that Seth was SO MAD I wasn’t leaving at home because it came out that perfect. Which means no lunch for Carrie-I had bread and cheese and some olives.
7) The day is going SO SLOW it’s unreal.
8) I have about 300 things on the DVR and it is making me a nervous WRECK because last time we had this much on the DVR the thing seized up and refused to tape anything and wouldn’t delete anything and Cox had to reset our DVR and I almost had a meltdown about the lost shows. So now I am ANAL RETENTIVE about getting our DVR cleaned out. Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse” is starting soon people! I need to be prepared for Joss’s return into television! My life will finally feel WHOLE again. Or George Clooney coming back to ER!?!? THESE ARE MOMENTS THAT I CANNOT MISS!! (I need therapy-or two DVR’s)
9) It’s supposed to SHIT STORM on Sunday, right before I have to drive to work. And the snow is supposed to continue on for a lovely 7 inches through Tuesday. And barely double digit temps means it’s going to be icy. Why can’t it snow tonite?!!? So I can be trapped in my house all weekend.
10) Seth will not be coming to dinner or the car show tonite because work is trying to steal my husband!
11) Have I mentioned my shirt is too small? I feel like its SQUEEZING ME TO DEATH!!

Now here are a list of things keeping me relatively sane and NOT crabby:
1) It’s Friday!
2) Grey’s Anatomy was really good last night.
3) I get to go out to eat with my family and to the car show with my Dad tonite!
4) I am going to be cooking up a storm on Saturday and if as a sign from GOD everything for lasagna was on sale at the grocery store last night. Also I have had multiple requests from people asking if they can stop by and have some chicken enchi’s which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy that people like my chicken enchi’s. I will also be trying a new enchi-Black bean and cheese enchi’s so if you are feeling adventurous-stop by and try them. Saturday Night for dinner.
5) I am making chocolate chip cookies this weekend from a new recipe that is supposed to make them super soft.
6) My “Band of Brothers” on Blu-Ray DVD shipped today!!
7) I got Seth’s Valentine’s Day gift all planned and ordered. Way ahead of schedule!
8) My house is relatively clean so I won’t have to do MUCH cleaning this weekend.
9) I’m on the downward slope of the workday.
10) It is not snowing yet.
11) The Meatball Muffin’s I made Seth last night were a success and the perfect thing to stick in his lunch! I think I need to make mashed taters with them though. But anyway-SUCCESS! Even if Seth now calls them Meat Muffin’s which makes them sound like the dirtiest thing EVER.

So as you can see, I’m balanced, but barely.
Last night I finished “People of the Book” and got a good chunk into “The Russian Concubine” and also I am thisclose to finishing “Even After All this time” I sorta hate when this happens because then I have to start new books all at once and sometimes the stories get muddled. Usually I like to phase in and out.

I thought People of the Book was really good. My only qualms with it were that the story kind of went al screwy at the end. The “main” storyline felt forced and like the “plot drama” was just kind of shoved in there at the end. When I heard the author talk about that character-I remember she said that she was kind of like that friend that shows up and sleeps on your couch and suddenly she was part of your everyday life and wouldn’t leave. That’s exactly how her storyline felt. I wish she would have saved all the weirdness in the main storyline and just had it been about finding out about the different parts of the books history instead of creating this weird forced plot device. I swear she stole the entire relationship of Meredith and her mom from Grey’s Anatomy and stuck it in the book for giggles.
But still! Still the background stories were the ones I liked the best. And they made this whole book worth it. So I give it 3 out of 5 stars. I liked it, but probably wouldn’t read it again and probably wouldn’t pass it on to my friends unless they were interested.
Ooo that reminds me I need to ask Ellyn if she’s read any Gregory Maguire's and if not give her my collection. He’s the guy who wrote Wicked, but he wrote tons of other books that I like to call “F’d up Fairy Tales.” They are lovely. Like the true story of Cinderella and Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Granted the Wicked series is the best by far, but these are pretty great too.
OH MY GOODNESS-I just went to his website and he has a new book out! Must buy now!!!
FYI-if you EVER love a author, go to their website, some of them have the BEST websites and you can learn the COOLEST things about them. Or sometimes they blog and it’s the greatest thing ever.
DOUBLE OMG!!! I just saw that today’s Friday Five special on Amazon is Ludacris’s new cd!!! Just FYI for all you ITUNES users out there, I just discovered that Amazon has the EXACT same thing, except their prices are cheaper and they have way more selection and awesome deals, such as this Luda deal that I will RUSH HOME and take advantage of-because I already love 3 of the songs on the album, which totally justify it’s purchase. Now I just have to figure out how to get that BOOK since I used up all my BOOK credits this month already with Seth. *goes off to ponder*
I hope you all have a LOVELY weekend!
Love,
Carrie

Welcome PRESIDENT Obama!! Yay for days where history happens!

Happy HISTORY EVERYONE!!

I am going to have a stunted blog today because I have not yet quite processed all of my feelings on the Inauguration today. Besides just ecstatic and excited and wordless about it.
I hope all of you got a chance to watch. I finally got CNN.com up and working after a few failed attempts! I actually missed the first part of the inauguration waiting for the video to load. UGH! Good thing I DVR’d it!
It’s just all so very very exciting, and hopeful. I am very hopeful. Especially since my children will be born while Barack is president
L’ara (whose house we are going to tomorrow for what sounds like a Top Chef inspired dinner!) would like to recommend the book “I hope they serve beer in hell” to our Heavy Baggage Book Club. Here is the description and cover from Amazon.com-
My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole. I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead. But, I do contribute to humanity in one very important way: I share my adventures with the world. —from the Introduction Actual reader feedback:
"I am completely baffled as to how you can congratulate yourself for being a womanizer and a raging drunk, or think anyone cares about an idiot like you. Do you really think that exploiting the insecurities of others while getting wasted is a legitimate thing to offer?"
"Thank you, thank you, thank you—for sharing with us your wonderful tales of drunken revelry, for teaching me what it means to be a man, for just existing so I know that there is another option; I too can say ‘screw the system’ and be myself and have fun. My life truly began when I finished reading your stories. Now, when faced with a quandary about what course of action I should take, I just ask myself, ‘What Would Tucker Do?’—and I do it, and I am a better man for it."
"I find it truly appalling that there are people in the world like you. You are a disgusting, vile, repulsive, repugnant, foul creature. Because of you, I don’t believe in God anymore. No just God would allow someone like you to exist."
"I’ll stay with God as my lord, but you are my savior. I just finished reading your brilliant stories, and I laughed so hard I almost vomited. I want to bring that kind of joy to people. You’re an artist of the highest order and a true humanitarian to boot. I'm in both shock and awe at how much I want to be you."
"You are the coolest person I can even imagine existing. If you slept with my girlfriend, it'd make me love her more."

Let me know if you are interested in reading it or picking it up so we can post your reviews!!

Okay I’m off to watch PRESIDENT Obama do random things thru out the day! As a history major, I could watch this for the next three days without stop. Ask how many days I was in my room after Sept. 11th happened…anyway-needless to say-ADDICTED!

God Bless you all and God Bless the UNITED States of America!

How I feel about American Idol and HBBC's First Book and Guest Bloggers get a new name! Or just Thursday...

Happy Thursday everyone!
I like Thursdays. At some point a long time ago some executive decided it would be the BEST night to put all my favorite type shows and for some reason, Thursday has been endeared to me forever. Except now-with the invention of DVR, I can watch all of those shows, so I love it even more. Especially since they moved Bones to Thursday night opposite Ugly Betty, and I just fell in love with Bones, thanks to Pam.
Speaking of television-I’m going to take a moment to rant about my love hate relationship with American Idol.
I started watching American Idol (henceforth known as AI in this entry) because Pam made me. Like most TV shows, she taped it and then we watched it and I fell in love with this guy named Chris Daughtry. Long story short, Chris got kicked off somewhere along the line and some stupid not as good other person won. (But the world remembers Chris so I was RIGHT) and I was CRUSHED. I stopped watching then and there. Then last year, when Seth and I were bored in Sioux Falls (as we often were) AI came on again, and this time, they were going to Omaha-so of course we had to watch. First of all, AI made a TRAVESTY of Omaha. They made us look like backward hee-haws. They kept flying over this “cornfield” (Seth says it was a soy bean field-and he used to farm, so I trust him) and finding these STRANGE STRANGE people. People with no friends, people who are down right CRAZY. But there was a shining light-David Cook. He sang Bon Jovi and I was all MELTY. And all over again, I loved AI. And then, oh then! He WON. OF course I voted like 80 billion times from every phone I had. But he won and I was SO SO happy.
So this year I sit down to watch AI again. But I’m not like most people in America. I HATE the audition shows. Hate them. I’m so embarrassed for people. I don’t understand. Do you have no friends, no family,who hates you enough to have you do this to yourself? I watch this show to see good talented singers, not goofballs in hot pants and a tube top. Or people insist they are SO good and everyone tells them so and they get up there and sing like a mountain goat. I hate it. I usually fast forward thru 95% of this part of the show.
Also you should know I religiously watch a show called “The Soup” on E! every Friday night. It’s basically a stand up comedian (Joel McHale) making fun of everything on TV. And it’s hilarious, and it makes me feel better about myself that I’m actually not the only person in America who watches this much tv. Joel McHale has a vendetta against Ryan Seacrest (the host of AI). So this week I am VERY excited to watch The Soup because THIS week on American Idol-Ryan tried to high five a blind guy. No really, he did. And Seth and I just looked at each other and he went-“The Soup is going to be SO good this week!” and I went-“I know I can’t wait-Joel is going to TEAR him a new one!” Here is a video that The Soup already has up on their website of the high-fiving!

A word about this blind guy-he was really really good. He is one of the people I WATCH this part of the show for. Show more people like him. Please. But here’s where I disconnect. DOES THE BLIND GUY HAVE NO FRIENDS?? No one who could have bothered to BRUSH this dudes hair before he came on national television. I get it-your blind, your arty, you like to dance-even though HOW you learned to dance is beyond me. But, really 30 people who screamed when he came out with his golden ticket, really dude who lead him around like a guide dog-none of you couldn’t brush this guys hair? REALLY?

(Ryan Seacrest high-fiving the blind guy who doesn't own a hairbrush or real friends...)

And once again-AI does another INJUSTICE to Nebraska. The producers must have stood outside and went-“EVERYONE FROM NEBRASKA-STAND OVER HERE” and then went thru one by one and picked out the most hideous people-one who I think was “touched” and let them go before the judges panel. Those were the only ones from Nebraska. In the interviews-they made sure to say-“HI! My name is CLEATUS and I’m from NORFOLK NEBRASKA and this here is a medal that I won in ELEMENTRY SCHOOL for being the BEST SINGER-and I taped a fortune from a fortune cookie ON THE BACK OF THE MEDAL and it says-something, I’m not sure the writin’s real tiny, but I can’t wait to prove my momma wrong because she says I’m not a singer but I’ll show her.” And then he goes out there and sings like someone repeatedly stepped on his throat as a child, which you probably assume was his MOTHER considering she is obviously EVIL and UNSUPPORTIVE to let her MENTALLY-ILL son go to Kansas City from NEBRASKA (Don’t for get-he was from NEBRASKA!-AI sure won't let you forget!) and make an ass out of himself on national television. That is how Nebraska is once again portrayed. Thanks American Idol…really, thanks..
And that’s my love/hate relationship with American Idol. Check back in 8 weeks when I have fallen in love with someone and demand you watch and vote for them and then when they get kicked off blame it on you and proclaim that I’m never watching this stupid show again. Although…I like the new judge…and there was a guy last night who was a music teacher whose wife died that made me cry...
You want to see me get REALLY crazy? Wait until “So you think you can dance” starts this summer. BEST.SHOW.EVER. No question. But we will come to that.

So moving on and merging to the left…
I (and my mother) have picked the first book for the “Heavy Baggage Book Club”! Oh wait, did I not tell you it has a name now? Oh it does. That’s it. There it is. “Heavy Baggage Book Club” I was going to throw the word “blog” in there too, but I couldn’t make it fit and sound okay. Anyway. Yay for witty names!
But the book! The book I am going to be reading and you can be reading too is “The Reader” by Bernhard Schlink.

(Book cover from Amazon.com)

If you are reading it let me know, and I will give you a heads up when I am done so I can collect the reviews. Don’t worry, I still need to get the book from my mom, so we will give you a month to read it if you want. Bonus! This is the book that spawned a movie starring Kate Winslet (who I love, love, love)-in which last Sunday, she won a Golden Globe for-her first ever. So you could just watch the movie and tell me what you think if you are uber lazy like that. And I’m going to try and drag someone to the movie after I read it, so if you up for that, holla! Here is Amazon.com’s synopsis of the book:

“Originally published in Switzerland, and gracefully translated into English by Carol Brown Janeway, The Reader is a brief tale about sex, love, reading, and shame in postwar Germany. Michael Berg is 15 when he begins a long, obsessive affair with Hanna, an enigmatic older woman. He never learns very much about her, and when she disappears one day, he expects never to see her again. But, to his horror, he does. Hanna is a defendant in a trial related to Germany's Nazi past, and it soon becomes clear that she is guilty of an unspeakable crime. As Michael follows the trial, he struggles with an overwhelming question: What should his generation do with its knowledge of the Holocaust? "We should not believe we can comprehend the incomprehensible, we may not compare the incomparable.... Should we only fall silent in revulsion, shame, and guilt? To what purpose?"

The Reader, which won the Boston Book Review's Fisk Fiction Prize, wrestles with many more demons in its few, remarkably lucid pages. What does it mean to love those people--parents, grandparents, even lovers--who committed the worst atrocities the world has ever known? And is any atonement possible through literature? Schlink's prose is clean and pared down, stripped of unnecessary imagery, dialogue, and excess in any form. What remains is an austerely beautiful narrative of the attempt to breach the gap between Germany's pre- and postwar generations, between the guilty and the innocent, and between words and silence.”

Let me know if you’re in for this round of the “Heavy Baggage Book Club”!!

Well I think that is all I have for this morning. Maybe I will peruse the net and find something awesome to blog about or someone and I will have a witty conversation that I simply must blog. But I’m sure I’ll be back later today! Or maybe one of my guest bloggers will be on! Who knows? I think I’m changing their name. They are going to be my Baggage Bloggers-because they are part of my baggage, in a good way. :-)

Leave your love and comments below!!
Have a wonderful day!
Carrie

Introducing Random Ideas and a new guest blogger

So I'm the worst friend ever. In an effort to get the blog out there as quickly as possible, I went ahead and posted the bloggers who I knew would say yes and didn't wait to see if a couple other guest bloggers were going to say yes.
SO! I'm proud to announce that Kathy H. will be guest blogging on the blog, when she gets a free moment, she's the busiest person I know. She has actually known me (besides my family, and she is practically like family) the longest in my life. So she will be able to provide some insight to my craziness and help clarify the memories I muddle.
Her topics/specialties will be home decorating, being a crazy cat lady like me (she has two cats too), living with Dan, and financial help. Kathy works for a financial firm and is pretty knowledgeable on things financial, so hopefully she will be able to give us some helpful advice, that clearly I don't have.

The other thing I want to announce is that on the suggestion of my friend Annie, I will attempt to create a blog book club. Basically I will post a book-you will read it if you want, then I will post a blog about said book and what I thought and you can email me your comments and I will post those with my review, or you can comment on your own. Email me your book suggestions or comments and hopefully I will get one up at least once a month. I think we should start with a Joshilyn Jackson book since they are in paperback (read cheap), most everyone I come in contact with I tell to read her (she only has three books out right now) and I love her. What do you all think? Let me know if you would be interested!

Have a great day and an awesome tomorrow!
Carrie