So here I am, sitting in my hotel room in Milwaukee. I drove up earlier this morning and I’m here for a couple days, doing a shadow assignment. It sounds like some covert military operation, but trust me, it’s nothing as exciting as that. It took me a couple hours to drive in this morning, but it went by pretty fast, thanks to the all-Christmas, all the time radio stations.

It’s snowing here, but that didn’t stop me from going to Michael’s to buy some Christmas decorations for the house. We haven’t gotten our tree yet, but I’ve got a lot of ideas going through my head.

It’s our first Christmas in our new house, so we don’t have decorations for a tree, other than the ones that we bought for our mini-tree last year. So it’s like a clean slate. Our home decorations can be whatever our imaginations and pocketbooks allow!

Though Dave vetoed the inflatable penguin and igloo I wanted for the front of the house. But oh well. There’s always next year. I’ll just have to settle for a candy cane walkway and icicles on the gutters.

Doesn’t it feel like Christmas is coming soon?

I mean, I know it IS, but it really FEELS like it.

Tags: Daily by Yano
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Saw this cool thing on Deann’s blog.

Three questions

(A) First, recommend to me:
1. a movie
2. a book
3. a musical artist, song, or album

(B) Ask me three questions, no more, no less. Ask me anything you want. (it doesn’t mean I’m bound to answer them. :))

(C) Go to your journal/blog, and copy and paste this allowing your friends/readers to ask you anything. Say you stole it from me.

————————-

Yes. This is your chance to ask me all those things you’ve been wondering. Get inside my head. Find out what color underwear I’m wearing today (if any). Ask me why I never used my college degree. Discover what my favorite 18th century painter is.

I’ll answer the questions at the end of the week. Or when I feel like it. But I promise that they’ll be addressed eventually!

Tags: Lists by Yano
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The Thanksgiving holiday weekend was pretty jam packed with activities. I’m back at work and I’m just exhausted!

I avoided the major shopping areas on Friday, opting for doing some simple Christmas decoration shopping at Menard’s and then later at Target, which wasn’t as packed and crazy as I thought it would be.

Later Friday night, we headed out to Dan’s 30th birthday party that his mom was throwing for him. She decided to revert him back to his childhood and have a kiddie party. We played a bunch of games, like the Bozo bucket game, hula hoops, that almost impossible ball and paddle thing where the ball is attached to the paddle with elastic and you have to bounce it of, etc. It was tons of fun. Later on we watched ‘Old School’ back at the Landlord’s pad on the 108 inch projector screen, courtesy of a Martha Stewart blanket.

Saturday we did a bit more shopping and hung at Dave’s parents for a bit. Later on we went to Trully and Irio’s tree trimming party. What is a tree trimming? When you’re too lazy to decorate your own tree and you use y our relatives for slave labor, promising food and libations in return. OK, I’m kidding - Trully put a lot of the ornaments up there herself. And the food and libations were awesome. Irio made this great Brazilian wine drink that had wine, lemons, sinnamon and apples all heated together on the stove (I’m not sure if those are the actual ingredients, but I’m guessing), topped of with a mixture of whipped egg and sugar. Sounds gross, but it tastes awesome - almost like warm apple milk. Just be careful not to inhale the alcohol infused fumes!

We got our fill of food (I even made my now famous bruschetta) and watched a buttload of holiday movies. After several rounds of 20 questions (since they had no boardgames for us to play) and a brief food coma induced nap, we went home with our candy filled goodie bags, all ready for the holidays.

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Sunday, headed out to Madison for some short track fun. More on that later, once I process my pics!

Tags: Daily by Yano
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Just in time for the holiday season, check here to discover your:

Secret Christmas Name

Mine is Cutie Chocolate.

Yum!

Tags: Cool Link by Yano
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Yesterday we started off the holiday at Dave’s parent’s place, and munched on some turkey, sweet potato and ribs. Me and his god daughter looked through old family photographs and laughed at the young, awkward Dave (of course, I should be the one to talk).

After that, we went to my family Thanksgiving which had winded down a bit. After a couple hours of playing our own version of ‘Catchphrase’, me, Marlon and Jeffrey headed out to Blockbuster to pick up some movies to watch. We ended up picking up ‘Elf’ (which everyone had requested) and ‘Ju-on: The Grudge’, which is the original Japanese version of ‘The Grudge’. I’ve heard it’s really scary.

So we all packed into Mel’s room and lay on the bed like sardines. Just like we always do. Ju-on wasn’t as scary as we thought it would be, Marilyn said the American version was creepier and easier to follow. That, and we wouldn’t have to read so fast. There were actually some times we were laughing because the acting got a little cheesy. But I admit, it had it’s share of creepy parts and jump out of your seat parts.

‘Elf’, of course, was great. I think I reviewed it before. Or maybe I didn’t. But it’s Will Farrell. Hilarious! What else can I say?

Great Thanksgiving. Worthy of being extremely thankful for.

Good times.

Tags: Daily by Yano
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Photo Friday : Prosperity

Field Museum Opal - Chicago, IL : September 2004

One day, this will be mine!

Tags: Pictures by Yano
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Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

There are so many things I’m thankful for, just wanted to give you all a little list of the things that come to mind…

I’m thankful for (in no particular order)…
Life, a loving family, a great husband, wonderful cousins, my new home, supportive friends, a job, great people to work with, enough sense to get my eye checked before it got too bad, not getting hurt during my car accident, freedom, cable TV, my dad’s new car that I get to drive around, cocoa wheats, old friends that call you out of nowhere, my ultra-cool blog readers, fuzzy slippers, White Castles, king sized beds, easy to make bruschetta, Smallville, good health, the internet, my fish not dying after I’ve forgotten about them, dollar taco days, Photoshop, getting email for no reason, internet friends who are closer than some 3D friends, vanilla soy milk, blue skies after a snowy night, reclining couches, late night movie nights, old school bootie music at clubs, hippos, contact lenses, digital cameras, little kids laughing, MT-Blacklist, glasses that don’t look dorky…

…and so much more!

Don’t eat too much today!

Tags: Daily by Yano
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Had a hard time deciding what my holiday layout would be, but then I ran across a picture of Rudolph, and I’d always loved him when I was a kid. So enjoy it!

Tags: Page Update by Yano
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I think a couple hours ago, I was lightheartedly posting about how excited I was about winter coming. I went so far as to start singing ‘Let it Snow’ with my coworker. All this, watching the snow fall slowly down from high up in our office floor.

I take it all back.

They said it would be a *light* dusting of snow. It’s almost looking like a full on blizzard out there.

We got out of work early. And since it was early, I had to take another bus, since my express bus doesn’t run that early. So I had to stand in the bus stop in the snain to wait - and I forgot my hat at home. But it was a good thing that Sam pointed out an alternate bus, or I would have to have spent money to cab it.

When I got to my train stop, there was about 3 inches of snow on the ground. Since my dad’s car is pretty new, I had to manually swipe all the snow off. The snow was falling down in good amounts, so it took a little bit to get home.

And since we just moved in, we hadn’t thought to get a shovel yet. I’m debating on going out to buy one since Dave is on call today.

Hmm.

Or maybe I’ll just leave it until he gets home.

*evil grin*

So yeah, that snow high I was on earlier? Completely gone. As soon as I saw that gross melted snow puddle in my garage, that was about the end of it!

Tags: Daily by Yano
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It is *freezing* outside right now. It started to snow a little earlier, but then it was kinda raining, then it turned into a frozen rain, and I believe it’s snowing once again.

Winter is here.

The lights on Michigan Avenue are up and everything is starting to get festive in the city. Holiday sales are going on and I need to go and buy some decorations for the home. I’d love to get one of those animatronic things that creep out little kids and small animals to put up on my front lawn.

I’ve had the biggest yearning for some Starbuck’s Peppermint Hot Cocoa. But I’m broke, so I figured I’d just buy the peppermint syrup that they use and make my own hot cocoa. I’ve been on a huge hot cocoa kick at the office. So I stopped by the Starbuck’s downstairs and they didn’t have any more. So I walked several blocks to the closest Starbucks to go and buy some. Once I have an itch, I’ll do everything I can to scratch it.

So I made some hot cocoa with my new peppermint syrup and it was *yummy*. I could very well OD on hot cocoa here in the office!

So I am content. A nice, relaxing four day weekend is coming with lots of family and food.

Happy almost thanksgiving everyone!

Tags: Daily by Yano
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