Mini Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

So I discovered a blog recently that mentioned Cookie Carnival.  I thought to myself "what is this?  It sounds interesting so I went and found out about it.  Basically it is a blog challenge of a cookie recipe a month.  At the beginning of the month the creator/owner of the list sends out what the cookie for the month will be and then you make it and blog about!  Easy-peasy.

This month's challenge was Mini-pumpkin Whoopie Pies.  It is a Martha recipe and is pretty simple to make.  You can't really tell by looking at the picture, but I screwed up at the beginning and made some 'normal' cookie sized.  Oops.  I think they turned out ok though.  I didn't care for the filling.  It was too cream cheesey for me.  I think if I make these again, I will make something closer to a buttercream frosting for 

the filling.  On the good side though, my husband isn't a huge fan of pumpkin but these have a light enough pumpkin taste that he didn't mind.  Also, I didn't read the recipe to see that it called for parchment paper lining the cookie sheets, and that isn't something I use, so I didn't have any.  I ended up just spraying the cookie sheets with the Pam with flour.  They came off of the tray really easily.  Also, I actually got more than 20 out of the recipe.  I actually made about 25 (including the four really big ones).

A month

It is hard to believe I haven't posted anything in almost a month.  Not much has really happened.  We went to Hershey Park around our anniversary.  It was a rainy day when we went but it was a lot of fun.  Isaac rode their new coaster Fahrenheit, I looked at it and just laughed and said no way.  As I mentioned before I hate roller coasters but there was no possible way that I would ever even think about getting on that one.  No thanks.  

After Hershey we just stayed home and took some days of rest.  We did celebrate our 2nd anniversary during our vacation but we didn't do anything special.  We are hoping to go back to Mexico (to the resort where we honeymooned) next year for our 3rd anniversary.  We'll see.

At this time next month we'll be somewhere in Orlando.  We haven't decided where we'll be on Saturday.  Monday through Thursday we have the theatre convention.  We'll get to see some new movies and try some new candies and see other new stuff.  (I'm really hoping this one company is there....they had some of the best chocolate, I haven't been able to find anywhere to buy it because the company is from Iceland!  Think Chocolate covered Kix. yum.)  Friday we are going to Epcot.  We went last year, but by the time we got back to where all the countries are we were so tired since that was our fourth park in two days. Sunday we are going to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party.  I can't wait for that.  It looks like so much fun.

Other than that we haven't been up to a whole lot.  Work has been really slow for me.  September and October stink in  Movie land.  At home we started planting some creeping myrtle out front on the sloped part of our yard, because it is to steep to try and mow all the time.

Our dishwasher still isn't working, but we had a repairman out last week and we actually had two problems and he ordered the part for one.  Now we just have to wait until it comes in.

The Staredown

The Staredown
Originally uploaded by Bowlergirl81

We went to visit Isaac's sister and her family this weekend. My husband and nephew had a little staredown in the yard. I just think this picture is so cute. (And no, my husband didn't actually use the hose on him at that range! He might not be a big kid person, but he isn't mean.)

Vacations

So Isaac and I have been wanting to take a vacation for a few months, but we just couldn't think of anywhere we wanted to go and kept not picking a time to go.  Now all of a sudden we kind of have three planned.  We are taking a mini vacation to HersheyPark next week.  I can't wait, I haven't been there in years! (I think I was 8 or younger last I was there.  It was in the 80s.)  Then we get two away from work but still kind of work trips.  We get to go to King of Prussia for a mini trade show type thing next month.  The month after that we get to go to Showeast in Orlando!  Last year we got to see 9 movies there, including some our theatre didn't end up playing.  At the same time though, we got to meet with vendors and see new products.  It should be a fun couple of months.  I'll probably continue my Christmas shopping when we get to King of Prussia (The hotel we are staying at is right beside the big mall there.  Then I get to drag my husband and his dad over there for some shopping.

Uneventful

The last few weeks have been rather uneventful.  The picture on the left is from when Isaac and I took our Sebastian to the vet for his yearly checkup and boosters (he is healthy and lost some weight from last year when they said he was slightly overweight).  Sebastian likes helping Isaac drive.  We used to let him roam free in the car, but he liked to squeeze through by Isaac's seat and would then end up under his legs which is not a good thing!

I had a week and a half of no boss in the office again.  He went out to visit his son(Ryan), daughter-in-law(Carol) and grandson(Alexander) for his grandson's 2nd birthday.  I sent out a couple little presents with him to give them.  One was a cute little outfit for the nuggette (Carol is pregnant and due next month and she calls the baby the nuggette.) that my other sister-in-law and I bought for her.  The other we gave to Ryan.  We really shouldn't have.  I know my dear husband and I are going to be screwed if we ever have kids since we've done all these kinds of gifts to everyone....  At the end of March Carol had posted a picture of Alexander looking at a windowful of Hello Kitty toys with the caption of "Daddy's worst nightmare, hello kitty."  So of course after reading that, my husband (who really likes to play claw games) saw a Hello Kitty toy in a claw game and decided to go after it.  Well, he got it.  That was the second gift that we sent out with Ed.  Now in our defense, we did send it to Ryan and not Alexander.   Apparently Alexander kept carrying it around and Carol kept saying "That's Daddy's kitty" which he of course repeated and made Ryan grumble.  When Alexander went to bed he'd still be holding the kitty and he would throw it out of the bed saying "Daddy's Kitty."  Too cute.

My other nephew Apollo was getting dropped off at his other grandma's house for the weekend this past Friday.  Her stairs were completely open (by that I just mean there was no gate at the bottom of the stairs, but it was the normal stairwell with railing, etc).  He walked over to them and pointed at them and she told him no.  So he walked away for a little while, then went back 

and put a foot on the stairs.  Again she told him no.  As in don't put your foot on the stairs.  So he played and then went back over and sat on the bottom step with his elbow sitting on the second step.  Repeat the no, play, then he goes back sits on the bottom stair but kind of lays his body up the stairs so his hand is resting on the third one. 

Facebook

So I created a facebook page a while ago.  I just started using it within the last month or so.  There are some parts of it that are incredibly addictive.  There is this program Hatchlings.  It had previously been called Easter Egg Hunt.  Anyone that has added the Hatchlings application gets a basket.  Easter Eggs are randomly placed in the basket.  Your mission to collect the eggs.  It is really addicting trying to find eggs.  I am currently in 5th place in the Pittsburgh network with I think 398 eggs found.  And the eggs that you find can hatch into these cute little animals that you then can feed other eggs to (they each need something like 9 eggs to be completely happy, if they go to zero they run away).  I have a slight problem though.  I find too many eggs that all of my hatchlings are completely happy and so are all the hatchlings of all of my friends.  

I try my best not to send Applications to my friends that don't have them on there, because I know some people like them and some don't, but if anyone does join I'll be sure and send some cool eggs your way.  

The pizza song/dance from the wedding

The pizza song
Originally uploaded by Bowlergirl81

I forgot to talk about the other wedding I had gone to earlier in the month. I had so much fun. I saw several of my college friends there which I hadn't seen since I graduated in 2003. My last two roommates, my one suitemate, two coworkers/friends and a couple people that I never really talked to much, but liked. It was so great to reconnect with them! As you can see by the video, I have an interesting group of friends, who I have a great time with. We're all a little weird, but that makes life so much more fun.
The wedding ceremony was a long one, but it was to be expected. The bride recently became an ordained Lutheran minister. So I expected (and received) a long ceremony, but it was beautiful and very well done, so it didn't seem long at all. We also had a 10 page program/booklet on exactly what would be happening at all times during the ceremony which was extremely helpful to us non-Lutherans.
The reception was at Tara. For any of you who don't know, this Tara was modeled after the Gone with the Wind Tara. I had never been there before, so we were following the directions that were given to us. The directions told us to go 2.1 miles down this one road. Right as we turned onto this road, we saw a sign that said "Tara, A Country Inn" or something like that. We looked at that and said, that's too small that can't possibly be it, plus the directions say 2.1 miles. So we kept driving. The funny thing is there is another road at 2.1 miles but it wasn't leading to Tara. So we eventually realized that was the place right when we turned onto that road. We turned around and went back and looked again and saw that it looked so small because the part of the building that was facing the road was a side, not the front like I expected. Oops. We got there though and we were still early, so everything was OK in the end.

Fun and not so fun

It's been one of those weeks.  

Wednesday was fun.  We went

 to Kennywood for the day.  The day had started of with the weather looking so bad, we were thinking everyone was going to cancel and not go to the park.  When we got there though, it was slightly overcast and the lines were pretty short.  Not too shabby.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm not a roller coaster person.  In reality I'm not much of a ride person.  Tilt-a-Whirl and the Merry go Round are my kind of rides. My nephew was having fun with the rides though.  This is him riding the lil Phantom with his daddy.  He'd been not too close to the ride and saw it going around the track and let out a big squeal and took off running for it.  Fun, fun.  

Thursday I ended up staying home from work, because every time I got up I was almost falling over I was so dizzy.  I've never, ever been dizzy like that.  I get that little bit of lightheadedness when you stand up to quickly sometimes, but that is about it.  By the end of the day it wasn't too bad.  So Friday morning we went to work.  We were only there for about half an hour before I had my husband come pick me up ad take me to the ER because the dizziness had started again.  Turns out that I had an "inner ear kaflooey."  Yes, that is what the doctor actually said.  I can handle an ear infection.  I was just worried that it could be something much, much more serious, but didn't know what.  

Saturday I ended up being mostly OK.  It was pretty much just the right after you get better you don't feel 100% kind of thing.  The wedding was nice (longer than we expected, but it was OK.)  It was at the UPJ chapel, but was I think a Catholic ceremony.  There was a lot of up, down, up, down, kneeling for good measure.  That was a bit much for me to handle after the ear infection.  Just started getting a little lightheaded.  Then the reception was really nice.  The food was good, this might seem weird, but the corn was realllly good.  I like corn a lot, but usually at weddings (around here anyway) you just get the corn that tastes like it came from a can and nothing was done to it.  This actually tasted fresh and had seasoning on it.  There was assigned seating, we were seated right next to one of the speakers.  That definitely would not have been my choice if seating wasn't assigned.  By the end of the night my ears were bothering me.  Anyway.   The picture here is of my husband (the one on the left with his eyes closed) with some of his college friends.  Except for the guy beside him, he had no idea who that was.  That guy did know the other ones in the picture quite well though.  This wedding was for Isaac's college roommate.  (He only roomed with him one year, but he had an apartment the rest of his years at UPJ so technically didn't room with anyone, just shared an apartment.)

Sunday was a nice rest at home day.  Monday I was back at work.  It is not fun trying to catch up on missing three days of work when your boss only half-heartedly did the things that needed to be done while you were gone.  Ed (aforementioned boss and also my father-in-law) had to my sister-in-law Bronwyn, that he would watch her son Apollo for the day so she could do whatever it was she needed to do.  Which was great, I love my nephew dearly.  The only drawback was, on top of catching up on work, guess who was really watching Apollo?  Yep, you guessed right me.  Ed was just letting him have free reign over the building while he continued to work at his desk.  Keep in mind, my nephew is only 14 months old.  Granted, he was closed off from everything major and was basically only running around in the big lobby, but still.  I ended up putting the little guy down for his nap, he hadn't liked Grandpa's solution.  Then Ed asked if I wanted to go to lunch with them.  I said "no thanks" figuring I'd let him handle that adventure.  

Today was a mostly normal day.  The only bad part about it was we found out that Isaac's uncle has a cancerous lump and has to undergo chemotherapy and then surgery to have the lump removed.  If that seems vague and sketchy, that is because that is pretty much everything that Ed told us.  

Tomorrow will hopefully be a good day.  My mom turns 60 tomorrow.  It seems weird to think that my mom is going to be 60.  Unfortunately I have to work so I can't spend any time with her tomorrow, but I will be sure to give her a call.

The Wedding

PICT0241,
originally uploaded by Bowlergirl81.

This is a picture of me (third from the left, right beside the bride) and some of my friends from school. I just wanted to share a quick picture. I'll post more later I promise, but let me just say...I had a blast. :)

weddings

Isaac and I have five weddings to go to this year.  We've already gone to two of the five.  

One was for one of Zaq's friends.  That one was out near Philadelphia.  It was a nice weekend away.  

The second was Isaac's uncle.  We rode together with Isaac's sister and her son to that one (that would be the previously mentioned adorable 13 month old).  Since we rode with them we ended up leaving earlier than we normally would have.  But when the ceremony and the reception are in the same place which is a room with relatively no move around space, keeping a 1 year old in his seat the entire time is rather difficult.  He just wanted to go, go. go but there just wasn't the space for it.  That plus no naps made for a rather unhappy baby with how things were.

The third is this Saturday for one of my college roommates.  During my 4 years at Thiel I believe I had 7 roommates.  The wedding we are going to this weekend is for one of my favorite roommates, Emilie.  I haven't seen her since I graduated in 2003.  

The fourth is next Saturday for Isaac's college roommate.  I've only met him once or twice, one of the times being at our wedding, but that should be a good weekend.

The fifth is in October for one of Isaac's former coworkers.  There is one bad thing about that one though.  Last year Isaac and I got to go to Showeast which is the theatre convention in Florida that is similar to the one we go to in Las Vegas.  Well, Ed said we could go to that again this year, but it is the week leading up to the wedding and we had already been planning that and a weekend at Disney before we found out about the wedding.  We still haven't figured out what we are going to do.  That week is looking like it will be our only vacation this year.  And trust me when I say Mon-Thurs is not a vacation.  Yes, we aren't at work, but we are there for work, and this is a convention that has you moving all over the place one thing right after another.  So we'll have to wait and see what we come up with.

I just can't believe that we have five weddings this year!  Last year we had three (I thought we maybe would have four, one of my suitemates in college was getting married and I had invited her to my wedding).  Two of the weddings were July 7 and the other two were both on the same day in September.  That is really rough.  I had to choose between one of my bridesmaids or a cousin for the July 7th weddings.  (I ended up going to the bridesmaid's wedding because I had known about her wedding since before my wedding.  I didn't even know my cousin was engaged until I got the wedding invitation!)  Isn't weird how things always seem to go in spurts?

no more freedom

It really isn't bad though.  Other than hearing him tell his brother, yesterday's manager, yesterday's staff, bookers (no, not bookies bookers are a legitimate movie business term for the people who book the movies into the theatres...well that is a pretty rough description but I think you get the idea), the mailman, his son and me of course.  

My week of freedom was very peaceful and a nice change.  It was nice not hearing the Buffy theme song every time he received a text.  It is amazing how much more you can get done when you are by yourself with no interruptions.  While the boss was gone, I managed to clean our office up some (we just don't have enough space for everything we keep on hand so it tends to get a little bit messy) and rearranged my desk some.  I brought pictures of two of my adorable little nephews in and put on my desk.  You might think that I'm a bad aunt for saying I only have pictures of two of my nephews instead of all three and my niece.  To be honest, I don't have any recent professional pictures of the other two, and I don't get to see them very often to take any good pictures of them myself.  So for now, I have a picture of my adorable 13 month old nephew and my adorable 23 month old nephew.  The two I don't have pictures of are my 15 year old nephew (well next Tuesday he'll be 16...that makes me feel old!) and his little sister who is 5 and a half.   You know how kids get as they get older, my 15yo nephew hates having his picture taken. 

ah...freedom

My boss/father-in-law just left the other day for a nice 10 or 11 day vacation.  The reason that is so great is that we normally share an office (which is roughly 11' x 23') and I get that all to myself for 8 (possibly 9) business days.   It is so frustrating having to share that size of an office with someone.  Granted it could be a lot smaller, but when you cram a normal desk, my big desk, three filing cabinets, a table for the copier/printer and then shelves for supplies along with two theatre seats, there really isn't that much extra room.  The other part that is great is not having to hear the ring tones on his cell phone.  If he didn't get so many calls and text messages it wouldn't be so bad.  But I get really tired of hearing the Buffy theme song, and "I am the god of hellfire..." and his other ones (One other is "Hot for Teacher" for his daughter's ring tone since she is a teacher).  And of course like everything else he has to have the volume maxed out on those so he can hear them.  Another bad part about working with my father-in-law is his inability to separate work life from personal life.  I can be sitting at my desk and doing my work, concentrating hard and all of a sudden he'll launch into some story about dinner he's making for friends, or the trips he and his girlfriend are taking, or things like that.  But on the upside if I don't want to work I can ask him something about any of those things and not have to work for an hour or two.

I do like working for him though since it is the family business and he and I are the only family working here now.  His grandfather opened their first theatre on this very lot in 1949.  I think it is great to be a part of something like that.

So for now, I'm just going to sit, back, relax and do my work in some peace and quiet.  Granted I have to do his work in addition to mine while he's gone, but I'll trade one extra morning of work for 9 days to myself anytime. :-)

You don't always have to make fancy things

My sister-in-law's birthday is tomorrow.  She was in town last week and I figured that was the last time I'd see her before her birthday so I made cupcakes.  Yes I could have made it into a cake, but by doing the cupcakes it is easier for Isaac to take some into work.  Anyways, I shared them with the staff that was working that day and they raved about them and asked for the recipe.  I told them it was really hard.  Go down the cake aisle and find the box marked Cinnamon Streusel cake mix.  In their defense they might have been asking about the frosting which was homemade buttercream frosting.  It just amazes me how long I can spend making something from scratch and then the things that come from a box are the ones that get rave reviews.

summer. ick.

Don't get me wrong, I like summer.  At least I don't dislike it.  I like it better than winter that is for sure!  What I don't like though is being comfortable if not a little warm outside with just a shirt on and no coat and then coming inside and needing to wear a coat or sweater or something else of that type if I'm inside for more than 5 minutes.  I like the weather that I can be comfortable inside and out without having to add a layer or two.  You can't dress for work with a long sleeve shirt on because you'll sweat to death when you are outside, but if you dress for outside you freeze to death inside.  

This post is brought on by the fact that I am sitting at my desk, with a zip up fleece thing on (I don't know really what to call it, but it is big and bulky and gets in my way when I am doing paperwork at my desk.)  I leave it at work so that I can put it on whenever I get cold and I don't have to plan ahead for that.  It does however make me feel a little bit like Mr. Rogers.  Walk in the door, change into a sweater, maybe I should leave a different pair of shoes here and change shoes and sweater when I get to work....

OK, I'm done whining now.  If you made it this far thanks for listening.  ;-)

Apple Blondies

Isaac had an all day meeting today so I made goodies for him to take in to butter everyone up.  These went over extremely well.  (It makes a 9x13 pan and we had two little blondies left at the end of the day.)  I got this off of recipezaar.com.

Fresh Apple Blondies

15 servings (Those would be big servings, I do smaller than that, I probably made about 24)

1 hour 15 minutes

2 1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs 

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 cups chopped apples (no need to peel unless you want to)

1 cup chopped nuts (I omitted)

2 cups butterscotch chips

Sift the flour baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together.  Combine the sugar and oil in a mixing bowl and beat until smooth.  Add the dry ingredients and vanilla and mix well.  Fold in the apples and nuts.

Spoon into a 9x13 pan sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.  Sprinkle with the butterscotch chips and press the chips down lightly with the spatula.  Bake at 350 degrees F for 50-60 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Cool on a wire rack and cut into squares.

*I only baked it for 50 minutes and then I tested and it was done.  There were a few spots that looked gooey, but when I stuck a toothpick in those spot it still came out clean.

MTV Movie Awards

I always enjoy watching these awards.  There just fun, especially compared to other awards.  I always like to see what spoofs, etc they come up with.  This is just a complete and utter mishmash of things as I think of them during the show. 

Yay, Ellen Page won for best Female performance.

Best Summer Movie so far, I really would have thought that Indiana Jones would have won.  I am really surprised that Iron Man won.  I guess I really have to watch it now.   I don't know why, I'm just not really interested in it.  

Best Male Performance...I'm surprised Johnny Depp was actually there, it seems like he is never at the award shows.  Looking good though :-) I had never thought about it, but when I saw Tom Cruise I wondered how close in age those two were.  It is hard to believe that they are in their mid 40s (and Johnny is about 11 months younger than Tom in case you were wondering..  They both just seem younger than that.  

I was rather surprised to see Zaq Efron win for breakthrough performance.  I figured with all the people listed there that one of the Superbad guys would have won because of the audience.

Wow, Wayne and Garth were on.  I really didn't think that would be something I would see live again.

Adam Sandler's song was rather interesting.  I think I like his performance better than Coldplay's or the Pussycat Dolls'.

Well, those are all my thoughts from tonight's show.  

movies a.k.a. the $100 million list

A few years ago (I'm not sure exactly when) Isaac and I decided to start watching all the movies that have ever made $100 million.  We started this when looking at www.imdb.com and saw the all-time box office list.  This first list we looked at was the all-time USA list, which only had about 350 on it.  We thought oh that's not bad, let's look at some other lists, like the worldwide and adjusted for inflation.  We added in the adjusted for inflation list because we realized that there were a lot of other movies that should be on a "bestseller" kind of list, but were not on the US list.  For example:  Pinocchio only grossed $84.3 million.  On the adjusted for inflation list though it is the number five movie for all-time gross.  Titanic has the all-time highest gross, but when adjusted for inflation it is actually #13 on the list.  Interesting.  The adjusted for inflation list currently has 571 movies to the 352 on the US list.

It is a lot harder than we thought it would be to watch all of those movies, considering the amount of movies we had both already watched.  It turns out we have watched about 550 out of about 680 movies.

We still have a long way to go!

Why are there always roller coasters?

I am not a fan of roller coasters.  Never have been.  It is very frustrating because sometimes they pop up in places you don't want them to.

Examples:  

1.  In Spain, our group went to an amusement park.  There was something similar to an Imax where you feel like you are part of the movie.  You know what I'm talking about.  Then all of a sudden, right in the middle of it is this big roller coaster thing.  I was freaking out so bad on the inside (but amazingly enough I don't think I really showed that I was freaking out.)

2.  Mario Kart for the Wii.  Driving along and then all of a sudden the road drops down sharply.  Let me just say that it is very hard to stay on the track when you have your eyes closed.

3.  3D movies.  This is what made me think of writing this post.  In March at Showest (annual theatre convention) we got to see Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D.  I must admit that I think that this is probably the best 3D movie that I have seen.  It was very well done.  However there was one scene that it was just like a roller coaster.  I was so visibly uncomfortable with this that Zaq was just sitting beside me laughing and telling me when I could open my eyes again.  There is a scene like this in Polar Express too.  Just because your movie is in 3D does not mean you need to include a roller coaster!

I know a lot of people do like roller coasters, but I know there are people other than me that don't like them.

Fun beginnings

I'm not really sure what made me decide to start a blog.  I had another one that I never ended up posting on and only family read.  It was very boring, and I decided a fresh start could be nice.  

I don't live a very exciting life, but I'll share some of it with all of you.  I'll probably end up sharing some recipes since Zaq and I have finally started using our new kitchen.  (It is so nice to be able to cook/bake again!)

I'm relatively new to this so bare with me.