TANGO-YANKEE

On this wonderful day called Thanksgiving everyone should give thanks (I'm learning to do this on every other day of the year but this day especially is a given).

First, let me explain the title of my post. Working as a 911 dispatcher we are on the radio or phone a lot all the time and phonetics are used on the job. I think everyone knows what phonetics are but, if not, let me educate you. A phonetic alphabet assigns a word to each letter (Alpha for A, Bravo for B, etc.) so that they can be pronounced and understood by those via phone/radio. S's sound F's on the phone, P's sound like T's, Z's or V's when speaking depending on someone's enunciation, accent etc.

Anywho.Some of our guys sometimes say "Tango-Yankee" as an abbreviation for thank you (T-Y, get it? haha!). I know it sounds stupid (after all, it's more syllables to say tango-yankee than thank you-so not really an abbreviation when you think about it) but I think it's utterly uh-dorable, especially if they have a deeply heavy hispanic accent (common in Florida!) and it comes out as "Tango-Jankee" (soooo cute!).

 So, today I'm saying Tango-Yankee for all the thinks I want to give tango thanks for.

1) My husband. Because, well, besides the fact that he is totally delicious to look at and awesome as a man/husband, today he is at home cooking Thanksgiving dinner all by his lonesome (yes ladies, my husband cooks.No, no, you can't have him, he's taken. Back off bitch!) while I'm at work.

2) My job. Because even though I am at work they try and make it enjoyable (one of our lieutenants is bringing us lunch today-isn't that nice?) and unfortunately crime never stops but it keeps me in a job--thank you God that I have a job-one that I enjoy and is interesting. (I've got stories galore that would wow the pants off a nun--assuming she was wearing pants. I mean, under the habit of course. Okay, I'm not sure where I was going with this analogy but I'm pretty sure it stopped making sense at the nun so...moving on.)

3) My daughter. She is just such.a.good.kid. And I mean, wow. I couldn't have ever picked a better kid. She has every great characteristic that I never had and I thank the Lord every.stinking.day. that this is the case. Because he did right by bringing her into my world. (lets just cross our fingers that I don't screw her up before she turns 18, 'mmmkay?)

4) My family. No, not my immediate husband/daugther. I'm talking about those peeps in Oklahoma that I miss so much (Lets give a shout out to the Okies! Holla atcha mom and sis!) Can't wait to see you at Christmas time--please keep praying for snow when we visit. Today it's a pleasant refreshing unagreeable 83 degrees in Florida. I am friggin' jealous as hell of the 33 degree weather I saw on the news this morning that OK is experiencing today. It should be chilly for Thanksgiving. But, I digress- this post isn't about whining and complaining. It's a Tango-Yankee kinda post.

 5)Friends. Okay, well, for me, friend. (I'm a bit of a hermit- and my "stellar" personality, as I reprise the roll of Bitch on a daily basis, hasn't landed me the title of "most friendly" in many, many years). So, I'm thankful for my kindred spirit friend that gets me-and accepts me-bitch in all.

That's not all I'm thankful for but they're the top things. Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. And don't forget to give a nice big "Tango-Yankee!" for all those things that are dear to you.

Sea Glass vs. See Glass...

Florida is really a beautiful place when you think about all the lovely beaches around here. I was wandering up and down the beach the other day, soaking in the loveliness of it all:

The waves crashing against the sand...the clinking of sea glass washing upon the shore...

Wait a second. I hate Florida. WTF? Am I dreaming? What was that sound? Certainly not waves crashing. Nor sea glass tinkling.

 A loud crash, glass breaking, and me being suddenly pulled from a restful sleep. That's what happened a few nights ago. I went to investigate knowing full well that the culprit's must be one of my curious obnoxious loving cats breaking something.

Of course, I was barely awake and couldn't quite figure out what the hell happened except that something must be broken. Upon walking into the bathroom I found the shower glass window was shattered.

There was a hole the size of a cantelope in the middle (like a ball had gone through it) and the glass was falling out little by little-the whole thing was a goner. I wish I had taken a picture of it before my husband started actually punching it all out to clean it up (It was friggin' midnight and I was barely awake so it took me a bit before I thought--take pictures). 

Here's what it looked like after he'd broken the bulk of it out into our shower. There was no chance of saving any of it so it was a matter of breaking the rest of it out (the whole thing was shattered through and through).

And for good measure...here's all the lovely glass in our shower. It seemed easier to break it into there and clean it up. Pretty isn't it? I try to tell myself that it's diamonds coating my shower rather than broken glass. Makes me feel better.

After we cleaned most of it up:

Husband hard at work... at midnight.

And look how pretty it looks in the trash bag.

 I mean, really I should save it in a jar and put it on display. Makes me think of sea glass. Le sigh.

 Alas, it is not sea glass.

The estimate I got to fix it was close to 1K (1000.00? Really? I mean, really?) I figure it will be a bit before we have a nice shiny window in our shower. After all, it doesn't impede the ability to take showers and the water doesn't splash out because of how high the wall is (though it can be a bit drafty in the mornings). So, that was the saga of seeing glass...not dreaming of sea glass.

We still are theorizing as to how it happened.(based on the hole it seemed weirdly impossible that it was one of our cats) I have yet to rule out ghosts.

Halloween....scary but fun!

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays-probably because it's in the fall. I love everything about it-the colors, the candy, the dressing up! (and it gave me an excuse to wear the gorg Mardi Gras mask I bought in New Orleans -which I would otherwise have no reason to wear.)

This year, due to being out of town and a crazy work schedule, I didn't decorate for Halloween. Bummer for my daughter. :(

Fortunately, my husband had a stellar costume idea for her and that alone made up for the lack of decorations. Before I show you the pictures, I have to explain something. My daughter (who's 11) is very much a tomboy and does not like anything that is remotely girly. She grumbles and complains every time I want to fix her hair, put her in a dress, or in any way show that she is a pretty little lady (*GASP!* God forbid anyone think she's pretty). She doesn't look at Halloween as a "dress up" day like most girls. She wouldn't be caught dead in a Disney Princess outfit --unless, of course, it was a dead Disney Princess...that she would do. Morbid, right? So, this costume was right up her alley.

Sidenote: when searching for the items to make up this costume the husband mentioned the word morbid. My daughter then asked, "What does morbid mean exactly?" When I tried to explain it to her she seemed to understand. Later that day, when discussing other issues with the costume, I suggesting cutting off a barbie dolls head to which daughter responded, "Ohhh yeah! Lets do that--cut off a Barbie's head!" **insert creepy gleeful child's giggle here**
I turned to her and said, "See...that is morbid sweetheart." I think she got it.
(I promise we are raising her with upstanding morals and values and she will not be the next Jane the Ripper.)

 

My husband was awesome at crafting a way around this costume (found the idea online) and the frugal person in me loved this because the whole thing only cost about $17.00 to make. She got many compliments going house to house, which I'm sure made her feel good. Plus, she felt like a celebrity because more than one person would walk by and say, "That is sooo cool!" -some even asked if they could take her picture. The hubby was just a thrilled because it was quote -his idea- end quote and he felt so proud just hearing everyone ooooh and ahhhh over it.

We will definitely use this costume again in coming years just because it was so cheap easy cool and scary!

BAKING FAILS...

 I don't have a huge passion for cooking or baking but I like to change things up every once in awhile so I go on the hunt for new (easy!) recipes. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. In this case one failed completely and the other just wasn't what I was expecting.

My first recipe was a variation of a s'more. Now, to be fair, this was an off-the-cuff attempt at something a co-worker made. She brought in these lovely little bites that she called Baked S'Mores and said it was super easy. So, like the idiot I am, I thought I'd try to make them without actually getting a recipe from her. I figured, it's graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate baked together, how hard can it be? Answer-hard for stupid people like me.

My approach was pretty haphazard with just a guesstimation of a recipe. Here's what I did-
Greased a mini-muffin pan. Put crumbled up graham crackers on the bottom of each muffin dish, layered a wedge of Hershey's chocolate bar on top, then 3-4 mini-marshmallows. More crumbled graham crackers and another wedge of chocolate on top:

 Then I baked it for waaaaaaay too long (on 325 degrees). See, this might have turned out ok had I not over baked it. I dunno. Anyhow. Big fat FAIL. I think it should have been more like this recipe from allrecipes.com. If I had done a simple google first I would have realized that but I figured-it's S'mores, how can you mess that up? Apparently you can.

Nevertheless, I will try this again per the recipe above and I'll let you know how it turns out.

The second recipe was something I found from a blog I visit called, With a Cherry On Top. It was for Homemade Oreos. You can find the recipe on her blog here.

These didn't turn out too badly but they just didn't taste like an Oreo to me... I was sort of disappointed. I think the recipe for the filling had too much vanilla so I might try these again but cut down on vanilla. The cookie part was ok, but again, not like an Oreo. I made them for my husbands birthday since he isn't a big fan of cake but loves Oreos. I think he was underwhelmed too. I should have just stuck with something I know he really likes for his birthday but I really thought these would be good (and, to be fair, they weren't bad by any means...but wow-it's difficult to replicate the yumminess of Oreos).

I might try this recipe again but tweak it a little (but we see how my off-the-cuff tweaking can go so who knows).

New Orleans...

Haven't posted due to being out of town. The husband and I took a long needed mini vacation to New Orleans with some friends. It was fun but tiring (we drove).

I'll load some pics later but for now just stare at these lovelies:

yum.

Chihuly Exhibit

I don't remember how or when I was first introduced to Dale Chihuly's work but I have to say I love it. And not just him specifically but the whole blown glass art thing all together. Of course, he's branded well so everyone who thinks blown glass thinks =Chihuly. Frankly, blown glass is blown glass is blown glass to me. You could show me a piece of glass washed up from the sea, say its a Chihuly and I'd be like, "Wow, it's gorgeous!". I always marvel at why this guy specifically is famous, and his work can sell for thousands, but some nobody's blown glass is like, a cereal bowl at Ross for $4.00 (and I'm sure a million and one art conoisseurs could tell me the reason is because he does, blah,blah,blah and those others don't do yada,yada,yada but for us simple folk let's just ignore the whole art class 101 breakdown and just say he's got stellar name branding mmmmkay?).

Personally, I say it's cuz he looks like a crazy pirate who dresses like a clown but I'm just hypothesizing here.

Whatever the reason, his work is famous and I got to go to the recent exhibit that opened in St. Pete, FL. It was awesome. His work really is beautiful (even without all the art 101 lessons) and I just couldn't resist reaching out and touching almost all of the pieces in awe. This pretty much gave my husband a heart attack each time I did it because he was like, "Please don't touch that-we can't afford any of the stuff in here if you break it!" Luckily, I broke nothing and his wallet sanity heart was in tact at the end of the exhibit.

I couldn't take pictures but just let me say it was phenomenal. If you're ever in the St. Pete area I highly recommend stopping in. You can get info and tickets here.

DIY Book Wreath:

Okay, I'm gonna show you a quick idea of how I made my book wreath but if you want more directions (and to give props) I actually got this idea from Living with Lindsay. Feel free to click the link for info.

First, I bought a cheap-o book from the thrift store.(1.50):

What I liked about this book was the texture of the pages:

 I started by painting the outter pages a nice metallic gold:

Which turned out very pretty but probably not really noticeable in the end (you could probably skip this step and it wouldn't look any different):

Then I went crazy and tore those pages out. I used a styrofoam wreath from the dollar store (1.00 obviously):

 I made my book pages into an S shape and then stapled the bottom to secure:

 At first I started by stapling them around the wreath but that wasn't working so well so I did eventually hot glue everything.

I kept going until the wreath was full and then I assessed and filled in bare spots.

In the end, I did end up rolling some pages instead of S-shaping them (make sense?) to give more texture/variety. The rolled pages were to fill in the bare areas:

This was a very easy (and inexpensive! Only $2.50) project that only took me about 45min-1hour to make. I did it while watching a movie so it went fairly quickly.

 I secured a ribbon that I had laying around to the back to hang it on my mirror. And since this wreath is basically weightless (pages and styrofoam=not much) I didn't even secure it to the wall. I just hung the ribbon over my mirror (which is leaning against the wall) and let the weight of the mirror hold it up.

 And it was as easy as that! Pretty, huh?