On The Edge Of A Cliff

A while ago, Halloween weekend, in fact, Scott, Jon, Jorg and I went shooting. We drove up Farmington canyon until the poor little Focus got stuck in the snow, and found a perfect spot to set up targets.

I don't think Jorg had ever been shooting before, so Scott gave him a lesson in gun safety and then we all shot some rounds from each gun we brought, using old bottles as targets.

I was stupid and didn't account for the fact that if you drive up the elevation increases and the temperature decreases...so I didn't have a coat, but just a sweater. I got cold and went to sit in the nice, warm car after a while, and soon Jorg joined me. Even though it was cold, it was still fun.

On the way back down when we were finished I got a decent shot of the view over the valley. Utah is generally a pretty place, even when it's brown.

And, of course, because driving down narrow, slippery switchbacks all the way down the mountain wasn't scary enough, the boys all got out of the car and stood on the edge of a cliff and gave me an aneurysm. What you can't see in the picture is the dead cars at the bottom of the cliff. Yep.

But, nobody died, so I really can't complain.

Silly, Foggy Scott

I'm tired, so today you just get a few amusing videos. If you're going to buy an industrial strength fog machine, you should definitely get to play with it.

It Looked SO AWESOME!

I don't think I need words to introduce this:



It would have been totally epic if we had had more than 15 trick or treaters...stupid Halloween on a Sunday.

Halloween: Buster And Nyah

Here's a picture of our little Nyah in her costume:

Best little Jack O Lantern EVER.

And, because animal cruelty is always funny*:

Buster as a hot dog. Oh yes, we did.

*Animal cruelty is never funny. And this isn't cruel. Well, not very cruel.

Pour Some Sugar On Me

(Gotta love Def Leppard. Other contenders were "Sugar Sugar" by The Archies, "Lollipop" by The Chordettes, and "I Want Candy" by Bow Wow Wow)

I had a dream last night that I went to Maverik in the morning before work and was choosing something to grab for breakfast. I swear the dream was like an hour long, and the entire time I was walking around the store, picking up something, then changing my mind and putting it back, choosing something else, etc. I ended up with a huge soda (not diet) and a ton of candy and donuts, and when I got to the cash register I looked at it all and said, "Scott would be ashamed of me!" and I put it all back. Then I woke up.

It was awesome.

I've been having an awful time with cravings lately. I think my body is like, "It's cold, therefore I need more fat to keep warm, therefore I must eat CANDY."

I've been a lot better about eating Halloween candy before Halloween this year than last year. A LOT. Still, I've had a bit here and there. I feel a little bit bad, since I've not been able to get to the gym much lately (but I went yesterday and my ankle didn't hurt much at all!), but I think I'll just have a few pieces over the next few days and then on Halloween I'll go ahead and indulge, and then Monday I'll bring in any leftover candy to work and make my coworkers eat it.

I was thinking about why I'm craving bad foods so much, since it's usually connected to how I'm feeling emotionally, and I find that figuring out what's making me sad/mad/whatever helps me not eat crap, even if it doesn't make the cravings go away. I'm 99% positive it has everything to do with not getting enough exercise over the last month and not having happy endorphins all over the place. I'm constantly amazed at the HUGE impact exercise has on my depression. I mean, the meds keep me at a pretty good baseline, but getting a good workout in at least three or four times a week really pushes my moods up into HAPPY HAPPY LAND (it's a really nice place, in case you were wondering).

Halloween is where it all starts. From there it just goes downhill. Halloween (candy), then Thanksgiving (pie), then Christmas (traditional Christmas Eve cheeseburgers, then traditional sugary cereal on Christmas, and all the candy), then New Year's (just another excuse to have yummies), and by the time it's January I'm usually heavier. BUT NOT THIS YEAR. I'm going to be reasonable. Treats, yes, but smaller portions, less often, and, above all, I'm going to keep exercising!

Now excuse me while I go eat one of the Halloween cookies my boss brought in today.

Don't worry. I'll burn it off later at the gym.

Chocolates, hCG, and Fog Machines, Oh My!

My favorite kind of chocolates are Queen Anne cherry cordials. Every year for Christmas someone in my family gets me a box, with the "e" scribbled out and replaced with an "a", which makes me the queen. I eat all of them in one day and it's delicious and amazing, but after I eat a whole box of them I'm sick of them and I don't want any more until next year.

I hate when people argue on Facebook. I got caught in the middle of an argument yesterday and it was mostly my fault...oops. This one involved someone ragging on the hCG diet, saying it doesn't work in the long run and it'll just make you unhealthy, etc. Well, let me tell you, I've kept 30 pounds off, my blood pressure and cholesterol went down, and now I can keep up with Scott while we're walking through a store. I can see how the weight would come back if you didn't change your eating and exercise habits, but I did and it's amazing. The end.

I ordered an industrial strength fog machine from Best Buy, and I chose (and paid for) the faster shipping. the website said it would be here by...YESTERDAY. They were supposed to send me an e-mail and charge my credit card when they shipped it, and I got neither an e-mail nor a charge. So last night I called customer service and tried to find out what was going on. I feel sorry for customer service people, because all they do all day is handle people's problems, and most of them aren't as polite as I am. Anyway. Even though it said nothing about it on the webpage, this item was special order through Best Buy from another company. The other company hadn't told Best Buy if they'd gotten the order or anything, so they were still in the dark. I'm mad. If, on the website, it says I will get my item by a specific day if I pay this much for shipping, I better get it then. As it stands, we may not get it at all before Halloween, which would totally suck.

THIS JUST IN:

I'm talking to Scott on messenger right now and he said Jon just told him a large package just arrived from Best Buy. I forgive them.

Work has been really slow lately. There are way fewer samples coming in from outside labs, so it's just our own every day, and it's not enough. I find myself killing time so I can get enough hours.

Me: Afternoon is the worst part of the day for me because everything is all done except I just have to wait for the machines to finish. And wait. And wait.
Kwiddens: Oh darn, you get paid to sit.
Me: I know, but I don't like waiting.
Kwiddens: Silly.

HOLY HELL I just got hit by a craving for Chinese food. I've had really intense cravings lately, and I don't know why.

The women at my new crochet group all do a different kind of crochet called Tunisian. It's almost a hybrid of knitting and crochet. I'm going to attempt to teach myself before we meet tonight.

At Least It's Progress

So we have, for a few weeks, been working on our Halloween prep. As you know, Halloween is our favorite holiday and really, the only one we do much for (at Christmas I do put up a tree and some icicle lights over the garage, but that's about it).

Last year we had a few tombstones in our front yard and a fog machine blowing fog over them. Unfortunately, it was just one of those cheap 400 watt fog machines (only about 1500 cubic feet per minute or cfu), and the tiniest breeze would come along and it would all just blow away. Boring.

So this year we decided to try something more. When the fog comes out of the machine it is pretty warm so it floats upward automatically. If you want it to creep along the ground, it needs to be cooled. There are fog machines with built-in coolers, but they're way more expensive, so we decided to go to Home Depot (surprise, surprise) and make one ourselves. First up we got a bin (black so it wouldn't show well at night) and some dryer ducting, and coiled the ducting up inside the bin.

Then we cut a hole on the left side and the front side (look at the picture below) and attached the ducting with duct tape. Then the fogger went into one end and the fog came out the other side.

Then, we took an irrigation tube and attached that to the "out" end of the ducting.

When the fogger was hooked up, the fog came out all the little holes in the irrigation tube and, theoretically, would spread out all over the graveyard and not just in one direction.

We took it outside to give it a little test run. Into the bin we put ice (about four bags, I think):

We made sure all the ducting was completely covered:

Then we got everything assembled and let it cool for a while before we turned it on:

We turned it on and we were so excited to see it work...and it barely seeped out over the grass. There just wasn't enough fog coming out of the holes in the irrigation tube. I took a picture but Blogger just deleted it and I'm at work so I don't have a copy. Sad. Anyway, let's just say it wasn't exactly awe-inspiring.

We tried to rectify the situation by widening the holes, and that actually helped quite a bit, but it still wasn't that much fog, so we had to brainstorm. The nice thing was that the chilling mechanism was actually working great; the fog was staying low to the ground.

So we decided to buy a more powerful fogger. Two, actually: one for each end of our brilliant apparatus (the other end of the irrigation tube was easy to open up) (we had capped it). So I went around town and looked for a 700 watt machine, which is the next step up. Last year Target had them, but this year they didn't. I went to Wal-Mart, Shopko, K-Mart, and even the Halloween Spirit store in the mall, but no luck. So I got online and started looking. I found several sites that had them for about $40, but the shipping was RIDICULOUS. Like, as expensive as the machines themselves kind of ridiculous. So, I was just going to give up when my dear Scott convinced me that since Halloween was our favorite holiday, and we keep good care of our stuff, and it would last for years and years, we should just buy one really freaking awesome fog machine and use it. So I got online, and Best Buy had a fogger that is 1200 watts (!), and the output was 7000 cfm (four times as much as our little baby foggers) and it was $150 with free shipping (but only $6 if we wanted it rushed) (and of course we did) (it'll be here by tomorrow at the latest).

Tune in next time (or maybe the time after that; I have other things to post about) for a story about how we built a coffin in our front yard!



Check Out All The Pix!

I finally got off my butt and transferred a ton of pictures to baby pink lappie, so HERE WE GO!

A few weeks ago Scott and I finally got around to buying a new bed. RC Willey was having an amazing sale, with a couple hundred dollars off plus a free headboard, a free sheet set, free pillows, and a free little HDTV:

Scott's been using it as a computer monitor (surprise, surprise). It actually died on him the other day, but when he brought it back in to the store they were happy to replace it so no harm done.

 So here's our beautiful, soft, comfy, BIG, king-sized bed:

Buster has been getting really good at holding treats on his nose until we say "ok".

The gorgeous Em has gone platinum blonde! She looks amazing:

She and I have similar coloring, so that makes me wonder if I would look good blonde...hmmm...

When we went to Maddox with Li I took a picture of the rolls, because YUM:

I bought a new purse, and it totally makes me think of Indiana Jones. I love it and it smells so good:

I took a picture of the swelling on my ankle last week:

Fortunately, it's getting much, much better. I think I might be back in the gym by tomorrow!

When Scott gets sad (say, when we spend $4600...) he hugs Buster, even though Buster doesn't like being hugged:

We found a new mask for Scott to wear under his cloak when he passes out candy this Halloween:

Of course, we had to put it on Buster, who was not amused:

And that's it!

Monday Musings

Last night at about 2:00 a.m. Scott and I were woken up by people yelling outside our window. Scott got up and looked, and it looked like it was just two people yelling, but not physically fighting or anything, so he just got back in bed and ignored it. BUT, after a minute or so, the woman started screaming bloody murder "Help! Help! Get away from me! Help! Let go of me! Help! Help!"...basically what I would be yelling if I were being attacked, so Scott got up, grabbed his gun just in case (concealed, of course), and went outside to see if he could get a better look and make sure nobody got murdered right in front of our house. Meanwhile, I called the police.

They sent a few officers our way while I described what was happening to the emergency operator. While the police were on their way, Scott went out toward the fighting couple as soon as it was apparent that there wasn't any physical violence. They talked a bit, and the man seemed upset and was pacing around, but nobody was yelling any more. I just stayed inside the house, watching what was going on, but unable to hear anything at all.

Two cruisers showed up and one cop went to talk to Scott, while the other went to question the two people who had been yelling. A third person appeared seemingly out of nowhere (he had been inside a car parked on the street) and soon enough Scott headed back inside and told me the whole story.

It turns out the two of them were insanely drunk, and had come from a party down the street. They were bickering, and the woman was overreacting to the man following her. She had left the party, claiming she was just going to walk home (but she lived in Ogden, around 15 miles away) and the man had followed her to try to get her to come back so their designated driver (the guy in the parked car) could take her home. So, really it wasn't a big deal. We did find out that the guy had fallen pretty badly at the party and had a few broken ribs, so the police let them go and take him to the hospital.

We seem to attract trouble. I suppose that's what we get for being the unofficial neighborhood watch.

The gym I go to is closed on Sunday, much like many businesses here in Utah. Saturday I got in a really good workout (I'm still sore), and then spent the rest of the day with Kwiddens. Sunday morning I woke up and the whole day I just felt...blah. I really missed working out! It's only been two weeks, but every day I wake up and don't even have to debate with myself whether I'll go to the gym or not; it's always a yes. It's only a matter of when I can fit it into my day.

I am really loving my X-Biking classes, so I invested in a gel seat cover, which will hopefully make it easier on my derriere. I also bought some new shoes, since the shoes I have been wearing are really old and slightly too big. I wanted to pick up a heart rate monitor watch, but they cost more than I'm willing to spend right now.

We went to a new Chinese restaurant that opened recently a few blocks away from our house. I wasn't impressed. The worst part, however, was the CHRISTMAS MUSIC. It's SEPTEMBER. Also, Wal-Mart was putting up Thanksgiving stuff even before the Halloween stuff.

We bought more tombstones for our Halloween graveyard and materials to make a creepy rickety fence to go around it. We went to a seasonal Halloween store in the mall to check to see if they had anything that would add to the effects, but we were very disappointed to find almost the entire store dedicated to costumes, and just a tiny corner had decorations, which were all overpriced or cheap-looking (or both) anyway.

Halloween this year is on a Sunday, and for Utah that means that everyone will go trick-or-treating on Saturday. This would be fine with me if everyone in the community who wanted to participate were Mormon, or some other religion that prevents things like that on Sundays, but that isn't the case. So I'm not sure if I'm going to have to do Halloween on Saturday and Sunday, for the Mormons and non-Mormons, respectively.

Saturday when Kwiddens came over we tried to dye my hair back to my natural color. I'm tired of the pink streaks. We picked out a color that matched my own, applied it according to the directions...and it didn't work. The blonde bits are still blonde...you would think they would pick up the color just fine and become brown but NOOOO, that would be too easy. So I think after work today I'm going to head over to the beauty school and have a new color put on, just one color all over. Maybe I'll go a little bit darker for fall. We'll see.

That's about it. It's a Monday. The end.

Labor Day Weekend

This past weekend was long because of Labor Day. Hooray for pointless holidays!

Scott had scheduled his (late) birthday LAN party, so Friday after work I stopped by the store and got treats, then came home and helped clean up the house a bit. It wasn't much of a job, since we usually keep things pretty tidy anyway. Our only consistent messes are on the coffee table and the kitchen table, and those didn't take long. He and his friends played from Friday night to Monday night. I don't know how he does it; my eyes get tired enough staring at a computer screen for a few hours.

I tried to arrange something fun with Kwiddens for Friday night but nobody could babysit Nyah and Nyah was sick of the car seat, since they just taken a road trip down to Arkansas to visit our grandparents. It was so sad; Nyah only had to look at her car seat to make her start crying. So I had Friday night to myself, and I just snuggled up on the couch and read "The Hobbit", one of my favorite books.

Saturday morning I got some exercise in, the came home and showered and did a little grocery shopping. Then at 3:00 some friends and I had planned a Lecture Prep reunion at Bicentennial Park in Provo. It was me, Kirk and Angie, Nate, Sarah and her boyfriend Nate and one other guy who worked there after I had already graduated whose name escapes me at the moment. We grilled and had the most amazing sweet corn and talked for 2.5 hours, sharing stories about work and remembering some of the funny things that had happened, and talking about how the Chemistry Department has changed, etc. It was just so nice to see everyone, but it made me miss working there more than ever. Oh well. I have a great job now, too.

Since I was in Provo anyway, I then drove down to Mim's house and met up with her and Em and Jorg and we all went to dinner at The Pizza Factory. After that we were talking about movies and shows we like, and Jorg suggested that some time we should get together and have a Stargate marathon, since he had never seen it. We decided to do it this weekend, since I had work off on Monday, so after dinner I drove Em and Jorg back up to my house. We watched Stargate and ate yummies and talked and it was really fun. They stayed over two nights, and Mim came to get them Monday morning. At one point Sunday night Jorg started to get sick of Stargate, so we played Phase 10 and then went to dinner at Applebee's, which ended up being a little disappointing foodwise, but the company was great. When we got back Jorg went downstairs and played Starcraft 2 with Scott and Jon. Em and I decided it was a good opportunity for chick flicking, so we watched "Moulin Rouge" and "27 Dresses". Jorg came upstairs to grab a drink and asked what Moulin Rouge was about, and I said "um...prostitutes..." and he gave me a funny look and went back downstairs. It was amusing.

Monday after Em and Jorg were gone Jon, Scott and I went and had lunch at MacCool's and then we tackled the downstairs storage room so we could clear it out because LI IS COMING TOMORROW! I'm super excited about that. We're going to have so much fun! We also went to the dollar store to get some candles and the Halloween stuff was out and there were more tombstones for our graveyard for only a dollar each (of course, it's the dollar store), so this year our graveyard will be much better. I love Halloween.

So that was my Labor Day weekend. And now I don't get another day off until Thanksgiving.

Except the few days I'll be taking off for when Li is here.

Trick Or Treat!

Halloween is one of our very favorite holidays. Each year we buy a few more things to add to our collection and every year it gets more elaborate, even if only by a little.

First we made Scott a long black cloak. It was perfect because Scott could hide his face but still see out.
It reached all the way to the floor. It was so perfect!
We then blacked out Scott's face, neck, and ears:
He put on a long-sleeved black shirt, black scrubs and black socks. We bought a pair of black gloves that had glow-in-the-dark skeleton hands on it, so he wore those too.

Next we set up the front yard. We bought six tombstones and a skeleton pirate for the front lawn. Scott set them up perfectly:
And it's hard to see but I have the cutest outfit on.
Then for the front porch we had some spiderwebs, orange lights, and a door cover.
Also we found a cauldron and put some water and dry ice (and Buster's new chew toy) in it.
While we were doing our shopping for this year we decided we needed a new fog machine. We put it outside, blowing over our graveyard (our camera kinda sucks so it's hard to see)(Scott is going to get us a new one when he goes to Hong Kong next week):
Now, I forgot to take pictures of the inside of the door, but we built a wooden frame around the door and sealed a chamber with sheets and put our other fog machine inside along with a strobe light and a blacklight. We left the fog machine on the whole time and every time kids would come to the door the fog chamber would be ready and Scott would come out:

Next year we plan on getting more tombstones (we totally didn't have enough) and building a little fence around our graveyard and getting a more powerful fog machine and...yeah we're excited!

Teaser

Happy Halloween, Buster!

So we love Halloween. It's our favorite holiday. We even like it more than we like Christmas.

Today we went around to like five different stores and got all of our Halloween decorations and stuff to make Scott's costume (and I found some cute Halloweeny earrings, too). I would tell you what we bought, but it would ruin the surprise.

BUT, while we were out shopping we saw this and thought it would make the perfect (and hilarious) chew toy for Buster:
Yes, a severed hand. Buster really enjoyed playing tug on it with Scott:
And, of course, when we were going through our boxes of Halloween stuff we had to put my old devil wig on him. Because that's what dogs are for.
He wasn't too happy about it.

I have my pre-op appointment tomorrow. Then, one week until surgery. I wonder if I can finish my sweater by then...

Love/Hate

I hate how the holidays go in stores. You know, Halloween stuff starts showing up in September (too early) and then Christmas stuff starts showing up right after Halloween (too early) (and what the heck happened to Thanksgiving?). It's ridiculous. It's like every store is doing everything they can to squeeze every penny possible out of each holiday. Maybe that's why they skip Thanksgiving. They probably can't make as much money on pumpkin pie as they can on costumes and presents. Just a theory.

Plus the Christmas music that never ends. But I won't go there.

HOWEVER.

There are some things I can definitely get behind.

It's the seasonal FOODS, dude.

I believe I already mentioned my everlasting love for the Pomegranate 7Up that only comes out for the holidays, but did I mention how I want to have egg nog's babies? And I don't even like babies (except babies that belong to people I know)(when they're being quiet) so that is really saying something! Then there's the white fudge covered Oreos. Every year Scott and I stock up and buy many many packages so we don't have to limit the absolutely heavenly taste to the holiday season.

I am totally making myself hungry. FOCUS, Anna, you're trying to eat more VEGETABLES.