This sums up why I hate my job....

Caricature

So, can't remember if I mentioned this in my earlier posts, but we decided to get this caricature done in nyc. They were all over the streets doing these and we thought the guy we picked had decent skills....but when we got ours back we both didn't like how we looked at all! All we could say was- "I hope I don't look this ugly!" I swear I look like Cruella from 101 Dalmations...ugh! Anyways, I find it amusing, so we'll hang it up somewhere and is funny memory of our trip.

Breakfast

I woke up this morning and got hooked into watching Food Network since I had control over the tv. So I'm watching the chefs make these too-complicated for me brunches and am getting starving! I decide I need some pancakes since those are so filling and easy to make. So I think- what can I do so these aren't just plain pancakes? I see chocolate chips (leftover from my brownies) and some marshmallows in the pantry and think this could be a good combo. YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMM- they turned out great! I just threw in a handful of choc chips and then tore 2 marshmallows into about 10 pieces. Probably next time would even use marshmallow cause it was such a great mild gooey flavor. And of course, here's some pics with my awesome camera! Makes you probably want to just reach through your screen and try a bite!

Finished product on my plate:

This bite just seemed too perfect:

Gus Crocker

Well spur of the moment last night I decided caramel brownies sounded good...and not the box kind, but the ones like my mom used to make. Our local grocery store unfortunately did not have german chocolate cake mix which is what the recipe I was using called for. So I winged it and just used some Chocolate Fudge cake...pretty hard to go wrong with a name like that! They don't really taste like my mom's, but they satisfied my craving and are good!

Some peace and quiet!

So I feel just a tad guilty for feeling so excited that Dustin will be gone for a few days and I have complete freedom! I think our place is so small that it just drives me nuts sometimes cause we always do things together, so I don't make time for a lot of activities just I enjoy. So this weekend he is golfing and I for starters can watch a girly movie tonight and any tv show I want! I'm also going to the pool this weekend for some relief from the killer heat. I'm going to go to dinner with some girls or hang out with them. I also may try to finish up some projects that I've been working on too. On top of just having fun though I also hope to get some more things accomplished around the house, so here's my list:

1) Straighten up family room, dining room, and hallway-- already is pretty clean, but just needs picked up a tad.
2) Put all clothes away in the bedroom and clean. I pulled out the furniture a couple weeks ago and it was DISGUSTING how much dust was back there. My clothes are also out of control and dustin calls it Gus Mountain cause I just throw everything on the ironing board.
3) Organize bedroom closet. It's become super sloppy and need to move my winter clothes to the back and get out my summer clothes which are hanging on all those spacesaver hangers in back.
4) Wash my car and clean out the inside of it.

I'm really psychotic over lists-- I make them all the time for everything, but rarely ever finish them. But I usually do most of it, so I still think it forces me to get some things done rather than nothing. I think this should be pretty realistic to accomplish, so we'll see. If I finish all that it just leaves our storage closet in unit and downstairs that are a freakin mess....but I'm not getting into those this weekend!

NYC Part 3 Recap

Saturday-

We started the day by heading downtown on our double-decker bus tour. We got off at the World Trade Center stop. We walked around the church that is still standing right across from WTC. George Washington had attended services there, so they have a pew that he had sat in. It was really just very said walking around there, so we didn't spend much time. After that we went to a building where it had a timeline of the 9/11 events and then models and plans for the memorial they are building at the site. Then we left there and headed south to walk around the financial district- saw the new york stock exchange and wall street. Nothing real exciting. Then we walked towards the Brooklyn Bridge and thought we'd walk across that to meet dustin's friends for lunch. So as the idiots we are, we walk down to the water....except come to find out you have to enter the bridge about a half mile back on the land! It's hot and I'm already tired of walking, so was not happy to go out of our way! Going across the bridge had a good view of the statue of liberty, but it was crazy how crowded the bridge is. Go figure, there was a group of about 30 people training seeing eye dogs walking right by us. So these dogs are stopping to poo and pee on the cement every few feet....so you had to be VERY careful of where you were stepping. Here is a pic of the exhausted gus-- can you spot the statue of liberty in it?

Finally we just walked fast enough to get ahead of them! So after 3 miles of walking we finally get across the bridge, dripping in sweat, and arrive at Grimaldi's for some of the best pizza. Only to discover the line is about 2 hours long and is probably already 1:30 or so at this time so I'm starving!!!! Dustin's friends arrive and we decide to just go try somewhere else. So after another mile of walking, we arrive at a pretty good restaurant where we could just sit back and have a beer and some good pub food.

After we hung out with them, we then took the metro back to Manhattan and picked up on our bus tour basically where we had left off. We then went to the hotel to shower and regroup and then went back on our double-decker bus for the night tour! The night tour was really pretty and it took us around Brooklyn so you got to see the manhattan skyline all lit up. We wanted a good dinner so when we finished that tour, we took the train to Greenwich Village since this seems to be where I see celebrities spotted frequently in my magazines. On the bus, we had passed down streets that looked like they had awesome restaurants that were our style-- candles on the table, patio/sidewalk dining, etc. So we get down there and walk FOREVER cause I was being rather picky looking for the perfect place. Too many were too fancy of food for me where there was only 1 item on the menu I'd even be able to eat! We were checking the menu outside of one restaurant and as I'm turning around I hear dustin say "hey eli, how's it going?" and this guy responds with "hey, pretty good man." So i ask dustin if he knew him and he's like- you idiot, that was eli manning! So we had another famous sighting and i didn't even know it until it was too late! I think we walked at least 1.5 miles, but we finally stumbled upon Elizabeth and it was perfect! We got some garlicky garlic fries and they were to die for!!!!! I had their homemade pappardelle that had truffle oil in it and was also awesome! By the time we finished dinner, it again was a late night of almost midnight so we just headed back to the hotel.

Sunday-

We started out by walking around NE of our hotel-- Park Ave, 5th Ave, etc. However, since it was still early in the morning most things were still closed. We did get to go in the Apple store since it was open 24/7. I made Dustin take a picture by it since it was a rather unique looking store. They are just all glass like this and then you ride an elevator or escalator down to the store.Next, we went to Washington Square Park and just looked around there and then walked around the west village area. We found a great place for brunch where we could dine on the sidewalk to people watch. It was $10 for brunch and you got selection of an entree/side and TWO drinks! And you got a basket of muffins and bread on the table which was great. We can't even find a breakfast that cheap here in st louis! After that we basically just walked along the Hudson River. We ran across an Open House for condos they were building in a pretty run-down area, so looked like it would be more up and coming. It was $3.3 million dollars and was I'd guess 1800 sq ft. It was 2 stories and had top of the line appliances, tile, fixtures, etc. But, still was outrageous!!!!! We grabbed some cheesecake from Junior's to go and then headed to the airport. We ate our cheesecake later and it was AWESOME! Dustin swears it was head and shoulders above any other cheesecake he's ever had.

So I think that pretty much sums up the NYC part of our trip now!

Yum-O!

I know I stil need to finish my vacation blogging, BUT we've been busy every night for the last week so I haven't made it a priority. However, we did go to the new Downtown Farmer's Market Thursday after work and I just LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE the stuff there! We spend way too much money, but convince ourselves that it is helping support these local farmers and families and the food seriously is much better than the grocery store. The normal stuff I've bought there is zucchini, radishes, carrots (dustin swears they are the best carrots he's ever had in his life), and strawberries. Some more interesting stuff we've picked up is watercress- I've never tried it, but Rachel Ray uses it fairly often and describes it as spicy, so figured we may like it. We also got a bunch of green onions except the bulby onion part is purple instead of white- they look really cool! We also got purple asparagus. We sampled many goat cheeses and bought one that was flavored with garlic and chives. There is a mushroom stand where I just want to gobble everything up-- but we limited ourselves to just getting a container of Truffle Butter....and it is TO DIE FOR! And we also tried something new and I'm not even sure what these are called, but I think Garlic Sprouts. You'll see them in the picture as the green swirly things. We took a nibble off of one when we got home and it was like eating a clove of garlic!

So now, what to do with all this good food?! For the carrots, zucchini, and radishes I just cleaned those and we are eating raw with dip. Last night we made an awesome dinner with all the ingredients!

1) Roasted asparagus in the oven with olive oil and S&P

2) Crusty bread topped with butter and chopped garlic sprouts heated in the oven

3) Rachel Ray recipe for spicy potato salad that was AWESOME! This made use of my watercress and I also added the purple onions in here. I made a double-batch which I'd recommend and I also held back some on the horseradish and ours was VERY spicy.

4) Steak topped with melted Truffle Butter and Porcini mushrooms.
5) Portobella mushrooms stuffed with the goat cheese and heated in the oven.

6) Strawberry shortcake for dessert...but we were too stuff to eat it!

I think now we've used or ate most our buys and it's only 2 days later! Just means next week I need to buy MORE!

We're packing our bags again!

It's official.....we just booked our airline tickets for Paris in September and will be in Europe for 15 days! I had been monitoring airfare for a while and seemed like it was going to be about $970 per ticket....then, for whatever reason I logged on last night to check prices and found them for $815! I went nuts running around the house trying to tell Dustin what a great deal this was. So he's like- then quit talking and just book it! So I get the credit card and luckily decided to check about 5 other sites and ended up getting it for $708! So this saved us over $500 by booking now rather than anytime in the previous months....so I'm super excited! However, the excitement quickly ends when we look at how much the rest of this trip will cost...haha! Our itinerary right now stands that we definitely plan to do around 5 days in Paris and vicinity and Munich for about 3 days. We'll be in Munich for the start of Oktoberfest, so that should be an awesome experience. The other days are up in the air, but we are leaning towards doing those days in Belgium. I had wanted Switzerland, but just seemed way to expensive to do now. So now we just gotta buckle down and get our hotels and itinerary lined up!