Celebrity Look-alikes

So I found this fun thing to do. You upload a picture of yourself, and it scans the photo, and finds out who your celebrity look-a-like is.

http://www.myheritage.com

Evidentally, Grant is much more "ethnic" than we ever knew!

http://www.myheritage.com

Jerry's

I realize that most of my readers could care less about my random, rambling posts about Pensacola, but this is my blog, so therefore posts about my beloved hometown are permitted.

There was a fire at one of my favorite restaurants, Jerry's Cajun Cafe, yesterday. I guess it's not completely gone, but it will take months to rebuild from this (although from this picture, it looks like the damage was pretty severe). This is such sad news!

First of all, Jerry's is hands-down the best cajun food you can get outside of New Orleans or Baton Rouge. I understand that this is a pretty bold statement, and I have no way to prove it, but I'm pretty sure it's true (the seafood gumbo, shrimp poboy, and jambalaya were my faves).

It is/was one of the most popular restaurants in Pensacola.

It's where I went with my family to celebrate my college graduation.

It's where I would buy gift cards for my dad, because even though he's such a picky eater, I was assured that he would never turn down a chance to eat at Jerry's.

When I worked at the front desk of a hotel, and people wanted a non-chain restaurant to go to, it's where I would send them. They would always come back fat and happy, and sometimes Jerry would even send over a muffuletta or jambalaya to show his appreciation.

Anyways, I'm extremely sad that this happened, and I hope they're up and running very soon.

Barbershop

After a series of bad haircuts given to Grant on base, he decided he wants me to start cutting his hair. I have never cut hair before, unless you count the time when I was 5 and took a pair of scissors to my own pretty, long, straight hair, which resulted in my mom having to cut my hair extremely short, making me look like a boy.

I protested this new idea of Grant's - until his last hair cut. The lady butchered his hair so bad, that I figured I couldn't do any worse than that! So we bought a pair of clippers and last night was the night. I cannot describe to you how nervous I was. The last thing I wanted to happen was for me to completely mess up his hair, then go into school the next day and deal with comments from his classmates. Instead of being able to blame it on the incompetent barber on base, he would have to say, "My wife cut my hair." That's a sort of humiliation that I just do not want to deal with.



All in all, it turned out okay. It's by no means perfect. But hopefully, I will get better each time. The important thing is that Grant came out smiling.

You Might Be From Pensacola If...

Well, I got dragged into another online photo-sharing website. This time it's Facebook. I'm already on Ringo and Myspace. I'm too boring a person to belong to all these sites! Anyways, when I was on Facebook browsing around, I came across this group called "You might be from Pensacola if..." and it listed the following things (my comments in bold):

Know that a Blue Angel is a pilot, not a heavenly being.

Know that a bushwacker is not some kind of tool or something perverted.
The definition to bushwhacker is 3-fold
1. Alcoholic drink, kind of like a mudslide
2. A music festival
3. A restaurant

Know that Monday nights are $2-off sushi rolls at Dharma Blue.

Don't even give a screaming roadside preacher a second glance.
Ruckmanites!

Accept that you are the only people in the country that toss mullet AND eat them.
It's true!

Support Frank Patti unconditionally, even though he hid a million dollars from the IRS.
I do not support Frank Patti. But he has the freshest fish available!

Know which bathroom to go into at McGuire's Irish Pub.
Of course!

Pour your margarita out on the boardwalk to avoid Pensacola Christian College students.
I don't know what this is talking about, but I think it's funny they mention PCC.

Know that when traveling on I-110 you get static over the radio when the "Hot Doughnuts Now" light is on at Krispy Kreme.
Never noticed.

Know these street names in order and know they are actually the same road:
1. Saufley Field Road, Michigan Avenue, Beverly Parkway, Brent Lane, Bayou Boulevard, and Perry Avenue is one road.
2. Mobile Highway, Cervantes Street, Scenic Highway, and Highway 90 is one road.
3. Hwy 29, Pensacola Blvd, Pace Blvd, Barrancas Avenue, Gulf Beach Hwy, Sorrento Rd. and Perdido Key Blvd is also one road.
I don't think the 3rd one is true. I'll have to check out a map sometime.

Eat fried mullet.
It's so good!

Cried when you learned that J's Bakery was closing and you celebrated upon its reopening.

Think a graffiti covered bridge is actually a local landmark instead of a vandalized eyesore.
Well, it is a little bit of an eyesore, but I would still consider it to be a landmark.

Kissed the moose.

Start most of your directions by saying "turn left at Jerry's Drive-In".

Must drive on at least three roads undergoing construction wherever you go.

Call a drive to Nine Mile Road a "road trip".
Not really, since both my parents and Grant's parents live north of Nine Mile.

Still call the corner of Garden and Alcaniz "The Sheraton".

Believe everyone should pull over for funeral processions.
Shouldn't they?

Know that when arriving in Gulf Breeze from the 3-Mile Bridge, you immediately do the posted 35-mph speed limit and honor that speed limit through Gulf Breeze.
I've never gotten a ticket in Gulf Breeze, but this is so true. You just DO NOT speed there!

Have gotten a speeding ticket in Gulf Breeze.

Prefer county commission or school board meetings to WWF Smackdown because there's more action.

Explain to visitors that it is not the harbor they smell, but the Main Street sewage treatment plant.
That, or the paper mill.

Would never drive to the beach to the Blue Angels show, preferring to go by boat instead.
If I was rich enough to have a boat, totally! But, alas, we were not rich, so driving it was.

Arrange your social calendar around Blue Angels weekend.
I definitely went every year!

Think the four seasons are "almost summer, summer, still summer and Christmas."
This is why I'm missing it right now.

Know Roy Jones has a chicken house.
If you watch MTV Cribs, you might know this, too, since he was featured on that show a few years back. Although, they failed to mention it was in Pensacola.

Call Scenic Highway "The Bluffs".
The Bluffs were so cool, but they're eroding away to nothing.

Moved back to Pensacola more than three times.

Have been asked to join every world religion while enjoying an evening in Seville Square.

Attend summer concerts in the park, enduring blazing heat and 98% humidity.

Know the correct pronunciation of Texar Drive and Reus Street.

Still call Perdido Beach "Gulf Beach".

Have waited in line for over an hour when a new chain restaurant comes to town.

Know at least 3 people involved in the Sandshaker scandal.

Have witnessed at least 5 cars running a red light at any given intersection.
Um, I think this should be in a "You might be from Albuquerque if..."

You own a generator and have a year's supply of water and gas stockpiled for next year's hurricane season.
If I had lived through Hurrican Ivan, definitely. But I was safe in the Southwest. My parents do own a generator, though.

Remember when Pensacola Beach didn't resemble Beirut.

Continue to rebuild after every hurricane because, "why would you live anywhere else"?

Know where to go when someone says meet me at the sea shell.

Know that when a road gets freshly paved it won't be long before they tear it up because they need to fix something, they forgot to do something, they didn't do it right in the first place, or they need to widen it to add more lanes.

Gone to Alabama to buy illegal fireworks. To bring them back to Pensacola to shoot them at random things or people.
This was a tradition in Grant's family!

The Gross Part of Winter

It got pretty warm yesterday...around 39-40, which actually does feel warm, strangely enough. Anyways, so it started to rain and it got really foggy. I don't think I've ever been in such conditions before. When I was driving home from work, the visibility was terrible (I'd say about 200 yards). On the farms, where it was nothing but fields, you couldn't tell where the snow ended and the fog began.

So here's a couple pictures of this weird weather.

This is one that I masterfully took while driving. I think you can tell how bad the visibility was. And you can definitely see how nasty everything looks!




The first one is one that I masterfully took while driving. I think you can tell how bad the visibility was. And you can definitely see how nasty everything looks!

And the second one is of geese waiting around for a pond to melt. They come here everyday, but today was definitely their best chance of it melting. Notice the shopping cart on the ice towards the back. I took a picture of this a couple weeks ago, and it's still there. I would love to be there when it falls into the pond.

Southern Pride

I'm staying up late tonight (It's 1:20 am right now), to watch one of my favorite singers, Joshua Radin, performing with another great singer, Schuyler Fisk, on Conan O'Brien.

Anyways, Christina Ricci was on talking about her new movie - I don't remember the name of it - and how it was filmed in Memphis. She was talking about the South, and saying how while she was there she was introduced to corn dogs. I thought..."What? Corn dogs aren't available everywhere?" **Which, I know that's not true, because I've been to Hot Dog On A Stick in Santa Monica. Yes, it's called a hot dog, but it's really a corn dog.** Then she was talking about how it's like a hot dog wrapped up in a doughnut. I'm sorry, but doughnuts are not made out of corn meal. She then went on to say that she learned the phrase, "Bless his/her heart," is a sarcastic phrase, and that when you say it, you make a lightning bolt gesture over your head? Honestly, I don't know what she was talking about. It made no sense to me. I know plenty of people who say "Bless her heart" and not meaning it in a sarcastic way. Maybe some people mean it sarcastically, but I don't think that's the standard use of it. And I've NEVER seen ANYONE make a weird gesture over their head, if I did, I would probably think they were a little crazy. Maybe some people mean it sarcastically, but I don't think that's the standard use of it. So basically, Christina Ricci knows nothing about the South, but she acted like she learned so much, and it bothered me.

All of this reminds me of how some of my friends in Albuquerque had never heard of a groom's cake at a wedding before, which completely shocked me! I had no idea that this was mainly a Southern tradition. Until I moved to Albuquerque, I had never been to a wedding where there wasn't a groom's cake - it's just as expected as the regular wedding cake. They usually have a theme. For instance, my brother-in-law plays the saxophone, so their grooms cake was in the shape of a sax; if you're a golf freak, the cake would look like a golf course, etc. (think - armadillo wedding cake from the movie Steel Magnolias). We got married on the beach, so ours had a beach theme. It's a great tradition, and should be more widely accepted.

So I want to ask my readers a few questions:

1. Have you ever heard of/eaten a corn dog?
2. What is your interpretation of the phrase, "Bless her heart"?
3. Have you ever been to a wedding with a groom's cake?
4. Have you ever seen the movie Steel Magnolias?
5. Have you ever heard of Joshua Radin or Schuyler Fisk?
6. Do you think this is the most random senseless posting of mine ever?

Well, that ends my late-night rant/ramblings. I'll probably read this tomorrow (today?) when I'm more awake, and realize that it doesn't make much sense.

Snow Day!

Well, yesterday Grant and I had our first snow day. Between the time we went to bed on Monday, and woke up Tuesday, we'd gotten about 4 inches of snow. We ended up getting probably 6 inches of snow, and at least 2 inches of ice on top of that. Seriously, it did nothing but sleeted for about 4-5 hours straight. Obviously, not good driving conditions. I had decided not to go into work, even though they were open. Come to find out, they closed around 9:30. The base was closed from the beginning, so Grant had a day off from school.

Today, we obviously have the built-up effects of yesterday. So, since it's still a Level 2 Snow Emergency in Greene County (which is where I work), I decided to take another snow day. The base is on a 4-hour delay (pretty pointless, if you ask me), so Grant will have to go in for his 1:00 class.

We've been staying pretty busy, though. I was very proud of myself for not turning on the TV at all yesterday, except for watching the news and weather first thing in the morning. I did some major, much-needed house cleaning. Grant did some studying and homework. And we both shoveled the driveway. I made a few phone calls, but the only person I talked to was Megan. It was great to catch up with her, since I haven't talked to her since she had little Joey. Later that night, we went to our neighbor's house for dinner and dominoes. It really was a great day, even though we were stuck inside.

Today I'm going to get some more housework done. Since I pretty much cleaned everything yesterday, today I'm focusing on organizing. I have a ton of recipes on scrap paper, notecards, printed from websites, etc, that are just piled on top of my refrigerator. I've been meaning to get them in my recipe book for a while, so today's the perfect day to do that. It will probably take a good bit of time. I'll also be doing a little bit of work from home.

Tonight, Grant and I have dinner reservations at Pacchia, so we'll see if we actually make it there, depending on the roads.

I realize as I'm writing this, that it's probably the most boring post in the world. So to be completely random, and pep it up a little bit, here's a video from 4 years ago, just a few months before Grant and I got married. His family was at my family's house for Easter dinner, and his little brother and I were "fighting." At the end, you can tell that my fighting skills are far better than Ryan's and he concedes defeat. And don't worry...you're not going deaf, there's just no sound on this video.



Happy Valentine's Day!

Le Ballon Rouge

I was pleasantly taken back to my childhood last night while watching - of all things - a McDonalds commercial. They paid tribute to a great children's movie from the 1950's, Le Ballon Rouge, or The Red Balloon.

I don't know if any of you have seen this movie, but it's a silent movie, about 35 minutes long, that follows a boy chasing a red balloon through the streets of Paris. Granted, the commercial ended with some bratty kids all releasing their red balloons, and then fake crying in order to get the greasy food, but I still enjoyed thinking back to the time when I'd first seen the movie. I don't remember exactly when (or why) I saw the movie, but I was first reminded of it a few years ago, when I saw it on a public access channel. Haven't thought about it much since then.

If you've never seen it, I encourage you to find it on YouTube. I found it there, and intend on watching it later on at home.

Bargain Shopper!

**WARNING TO GUY READERS - this post is about shopping, so you might want to stop reading now. Trust me, you don't want to read this.**

After my shopping experience on Saturday, I really think I could be a shopper for one of those get-a-designer-look-for-cheap shows. Let me explain...

I got an Ann Taylor Loft gift card for Christmas that I was waiting to use on something that I really wanted. So I've been looking on their website, browsing their new clothes, and I found it - a very cute red-with-white-polka-dots shirt. Well, Saturday, I went to our Ann Taylor Loft and got the LAST ONE they had in my size (apparently, this is a very popular shirt, and they've sold out pretty quickly - Megan, did you get this shirt, too?). I don't really have any shoes to wear with the shirt, but I was going to wait until it's actually warm enough to wear it to look for shoes. They did have this pair at Ann Taylor Loft, but who wants to spend $69 on a pair of shoes?
Well I went to Payless, just to see what they had, and there they were...almost the exact shoe at Ann Taylor Loft! For $17.99!! (They are more red in person than they look in this picture)

They only had one pair left in my size, so I snatched them up, plus got another pair that was already on sale for an extra half off (gotta love BOGO). Which means, I got 2 pairs of shoes for less than $30. I was pretty proud of myself. Even Grant, arguable one of the most "thrifty" husbands in all the land, couldn't deny the fact that this was a great deal.

Do I have shopping skills, or what?

You decide

Yesterday, I went out shopping (yay!), and when I came home, I got out of the car and saw this gigantic icicle! Now, I really think there should be a better word to describe this thing. I'm thinking "mini glacier."

Now I'm sure it doesn't really fit the definition of a glacier, but I'm also pretty sure it doesn't fit the definition of an icicle, given it's size. Any other suggestions?

Beer Bread

Copying Megan a little bit, I thought I'd share a recipe that I love to make about once a week. First, a little bit of a background...

There's this company called Tastefully Simple (think Avon or Mary Kay for food products; i.e., there's a consultant and you order from her), and their token product is Beer Bread. You buy the mix, and just add a bottle of beer (or soda, although I haven't tried it that way), stick it in the oven, and you have the most delicious bread ever. Well, this beer bread mix is about $5 a box, which is expensive if you want it all the time.

Well my neighbor, Catie, found a recipe that tastes almost exactly the same, and when she priced it out, costs only about $.39 to make. I will say, I don't think it's quite as good as Tastefully Simple's mix, but it's pretty darn close. It's super easy and super quick and has become a staple at our house.

3 cups self-rising flour
3-4 T sugar
1 bottle 12 oz. beer
1 or 2 T of butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350. Mix together the flour, sugar and beer. Pour into greased bread pan. Pour melted butter on top if you want a crispy outer crust. Bake about 50-55 min. Enjoy!

Since I am no expert on beer, I let Grant decide what beer to use the first time I made the Tastefully Simple bread. He picked out Blue Moon Pale Ale. We tried another beer later, and it didn't taste as good, so we've always used the Blue Moon. I don't know how much difference beer makes to the taste, but this is what I would recommend.

What in the World?!

So, I just switched to the new blogger. I never wanted to, but they made me! Literally...I couldn't sign in unless I switched over.

Anyways, all this time, I've really thought that no one was reading my blog because hardly anyone was posting on it. Pinky sent me an email saying that she tried to post, but it never showed. Well, I saw this little message on the new blogger that said "30 comments need to be moderated." I saw this before, but didn't know what it meant, so I ignored it. When I checked it out, I did indeed have 30 comments from all the way back to December! So they're all published. I never replied to them, because I didn't even know they existed.

So I apologize to all of you who have left comments and I didn't reply. I got a big confidence boost when I saw all those comments! There were even a few from Cody!

I hope the comment thingy is working now. Pinky's comments still don't show, so I don't know what's going on.

For those of you who switched over too, did you have similar problems? If so, what did you do to fix it?

I hate stairs

It's been very snowy today. I'm writing this at 8:30 pm, and it's pretty much been snowing nonstop since about noon.

This is what it looked like when I left work an hour early so I could beat the dangerous rush-hour traffic.
And this is what I looked like after I de-snowed my car, and prepared to hit the road. The look of fear and nervousness...

A lot of things closed down due to the cold temps, the snowy conditions, and no one wanting to be on the roads. It's normally one of my gym nights, but I was supposed to go to a $.25 auction instead with some other AFIT spouses (don't ask me what that is, I'm not quite sure), and it got cancelled. The gym was closed anyway, so I decided to try something indoors.

Fitnessmagazine.com has a lot of different workout suggestions to do, and I tried the stair climbing one. It was convenient, because you don't need a gym stair climber to do it, and it was only for 15 minutes, which turned out to be the worst 15 minutes of my life!

When I was done, Grant asked if I was dying. I think I was. I also think I'm not going to be able to walk tomorrow.

Rio, Here We Come....

So yesterday, Grant and I booked our kind-of annual trip this year for Rio de Janeiro!! Grant has off from school for almost the whole month of September, and I got off from work for about a week and a half so we could take a trip. We weren't sure where to go, but after a lot of deliberating (and the fact that this was the most inexpensive trip that we were looking at), we decided on Rio!

So we'll be spending a few days there, and we'll also spend a couple days in Buenos Aires, Argentina. And with this crazy-cold weather we've been having lately, I can think of our future trip to escape, if only in my daydreams, the single-digit temps.

So Far, So Good

Well, week 2 of my 5-day-a-week workout plan is over and done with. I'm proud of myself for keeping it up.

Grant was talking to his brother, John, yesterday (who is back in the States from his deployment in Africa) and John asked if I'm addicted to working out. Well, no. I could easily drop the cardio and never look back. But I will say, that I am somewhat "addicted" to my yoga class. If I know I'm going to miss a class because of something else that I have to do, or if the class is cancelled for some reason, I get very disappointed because I don't want to miss it.

As far as the cardio, I've been doing a different treadmill workout each week (they have several listed on fitnessmagazine.com) to keep me from getting bored. I might attempt the stair climber next week. We'll see how that goes.

I'm a terrible friend!

Mrs. J! I didn't realize it was your birthday until I read your mom's comment on your blog. So, here's my way of making it up to you...

Deery Lou...in PINK!

Hope you have a very happy birthday.

Remember about this time last year, we had you and Mr. J over for din-din, and I made a chicken blueberry pie because Mr. J told me you loved blueberries, and you loved fruit pies and I baked it in the oven with the chicken, so it tasted like blueberry with a hint of chicken, and you showed us your honeymoon pictures? Ahh, memories.

I'm pretty sure that was the longest run-on sentence ever.

The Office

Betcha thought this was gonna be a post about the TV show, huh? Well, it's not. It's about my office!

So, this is my sad little cubicle at YSI, in frigidly cold Yellow Springs, Ohio. There's my calendar of Pensacola that I found at Wal-Mart while I was at home for Christmas. And there's a bunch of notebooks on a shelf that I have never used, and probably never will.
And here's what I look at all day. Beautiful, right? A while back, I mentioned taking a picture at Pensacola beach, and wanting to blow it up to poster size so I could hang it in my cubicle. Well, the bland cubicle wall that you see there will soon be covered up with a picture of the most beautiful beach in the world. I keep everything I use regularly within close proximity to my work space - i.e., the pink water bottle that is still out to get me on a daily basis; next to the water bottle, my Burt's Bees that I use hourly; and on the left, my little bottle of lotion that smells like coconut (which also reminds me of the beach), that I use probably every half hour to keep my hands from drying out from the before-mentioned frigid temperatures.
And here's me making a face that I need to remind myself to never make again. Apparently, this is the face I make when I'm trying to cover up the nerdiness of taking pictures of my cubicle. Anyways, behind me is the calendar that I have all my days off marked. My days off...My days off in the summer...The summer...Above-freezing temperatures.

I know you all have been wanting to see what working in a glamorous environmental engineering company looks like. So there you have it.

Etsy!

One of my newest fascinations is this website called Etsy. It's all handmade stuff, and there are some pretty interesting things on it. If you've already heard of this, I'm sorry, I guess I'm a little late. If you've never heard of it (and you're a girl - I don't think too many guys would be interested), then I hope you like it. You could spend hours looking at all the unique (and sometimes weird) handmade items.

Tink, I specifically thought of you when I first saw it, because there's several of those nifty glass marble picture magnets that you like to make.