Ladies’ Night at The Melting Pot
Originally uploaded by meliass.

Not that I’m supposed to accomplish anything while on vacation. Despite this, I have a list of things I want to get done. I’ve done 1 1/2 of them. Including today I still have 6 days of vacation left but we’re probably heading to the beach tonight for a couple of days. That will leave me with 3 days to do everything else. Ugh.

The Melting Pot (the fondue restaurant chain) had a Ladies’ Night special on Wednesday night with 4 courses for $25 per person. It was loads of fun and loads of food…and despite not drinking very much, we got a little boisterous. We truly did have lots of female customers glaring at us as we left. This may be in part because of our fairly racy conversations. That and the fact that in addition to our male server, we had other male staff members stop by the table to check on us during our meal.

Other than dinner out, I’ve not done a whole lot other than eat. I spent the afternoon shopping with my mom the other day, had lunch with work friends, baked creme brulees for a work friend moving out of town next week, and I made the most wonderful crabcakes for dinner last night.

I need to get off of my butt and pack some stuff for the beach. I’m looking forward to the drive there and back as I can probably con the boyfriend into driving…which means that I can knit in the car. I love knitting in the car…and what the hell else am I going to do while sitting for hours? I’m going to take my green Wicked sweater with me to work on but I should probably throw in some other project as well. And I was just lent a copy of the book “Wicked” to read so that will go in the bag as well…it’ll be a Wicked weekend.

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Don’t expect to hear much from me for a couple of days. Harry Potter comes first. He’s ahead of work, sleep and the boyfriend right now. Especially since the boyfriend had the whole day off and finished the book already. Not that I won’t finish it before I go to work tomorrow afternoon. I’ve got 14 hours until I work again and only 407 pages to go. Sleep be damned.

I did get my copy at the local Barnes & Noble midnight release party. They had a system set up where you could pick up numbered wristbands yesterday at 4 pm. I got in that line since I had the afternoon off, waited for about 25 minutes (and got a little bit of sun), picked up wristband numbers 51-55 and went home. My friend Brian & I showed up at the store around 11 pm, wandered around, got a Polaroid taken, Brian put on a sorting hat (he’s now a Hufflepuff) and they then sorted wristbands 1-50 into a line at the front of the store and 51-100 into a line at the back of the store. We were maybe 6 or 7 people into the back of the store line so we were out the door with books in hand by 12:05. How awesome is that? And it probably sucked to be the person with wristband number 872.

Amazingly I only read the first 5 chapters last night and went to bed by 1:30. However, I woke up at 7:15 this morning with the boyfriend and started reading. We both sat in my living room reading for 4 hours straight this morning. We kept intermittently giggling at different parts in the book but I couldn’t ever tell him what I was giggling at since I was ahead. Then I took a nap for a couple of hours and he kept reading. The nap was kind of a necessity if I wanted to even moderately function as a restaurant manager tonight. My huge Starbucks Dulce de Leche latte was also a necessity this afternoon.

I’m such a dork. Time to go…it’s time to start Chapter 18 and time to hope that I can force myself to bed rather than finishing the book tonight.

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A possible alternative to Starbucks?
Originally uploaded by meliass.

I’ve mostly given up sodas (namely Dr. Pepper) but still need a little caffeine fix at least several days each week. Starbucks usually does the trick. But it’s so expensive. So…I’m trying this sweetened espresso concentrate from Stomping Grounds (out of Portland, OR). It’s pretty good. Just mix it with milk and ice for an iced latte that tastes a lot like bottled Frappuccinos. And it’s much, much cheaper than a stop by the local Starbucks. I bought a box of it in Vanilla Latte as well…but I haven’t tried it yet.

After watching Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix last night at midnight, I had a conversation with the boyfriend about how wonderful some of the actors are. Alan Rickman as Professor Snape is one of the best. So I’m now watching Love Actually for the zillionth time as he’s in it. And I love the movie.

I also like the Harry Potter movie. I may have read that book too recently…as there were lots of things fresh in my mind that I wanted to see on film…but they weren’t there. It was good anyway. I shall see it again sometime in the next week or so with the boyfriend as he couldn’t go last night.

In other news, I bought an iPod. I’ve never really had any need or desire for one as I’ve had a Creative mp3 player since Christmas 2003 and it was fine and has loads of storage but it was just so old and large and old and large. So I suddenly decided that I wanted an iPod one night last week. I promptly ordered a 30 gb iPod video the next day. It’s here and I’ve already put 700 songs on it. It’s so much smaller and prettier than it’s predecessor. The boyfriend is an avid Apple user and is absolutely convinced that I’m going to want a Macbook within months. I’m not so sure. Not to mention the fact that I have a perfectly good PC and a perfectly good laptop already.

I really like Alan Rickman’s voice. It’s probably half the reason I love him so much as Snape.

That’s all for now.

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Jungle Green Cotton Fleece Yarn for a Wicked sweater…
Originally uploaded by meliass.

I want my own Wicked sweater since the first red one doesn’t fit me. So I shall try again. With luck I can make the second one fit me properly in the arms. The second attempt will be knit in this lovely green Cotton Fleece yarn.

It’s a rainy night here in Williamsburg. The boyfriend is away until tomorrow and I’ve decided to sit at home watching all 4 of the Harry Potter movies in anticipation of the new movie next week. The new movie that I will be watching the first showing of at midnight next Tuesday with a work friend. And then I shall watch it again on Wednesday evening with the boyfriend. I’m a big dork.

I’ve apparently lost a bit of weight. More than I thought I had. An older couple that frequents Berret’s were in yesterday afternoon. They’ve known me for years, seem to like me a lot, and I haven’t seen them in about 6 months. They yelled for me across the outside restaurant yesterday to ask me how much weight I’ve lost. I thought I’d lost just a little and they remarked that I looked like I’d lost a lot and that I looked stunning. Very nice. I guess that it’s more noticeable to people that don’t see me every day. I guess all of the stuff I stopped eating this year is paying off.

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Thai Beef Salad
Originally uploaded by meliass.

I promised Alison the recipe when I posted this picture. Then I forgot to give it to her. So here it is for anyone that reads this. If only you could see the cute boygirlparty.com recipe card that it’s written on. Thanks for buying them for me, Tasha!

The recipe here is a hybrid of several recipes I found online and the ingredients that are in a salad served at the Thai Diner in Richmond. Their version is by far my favorite. Other than my own.

Ingredients:
-1 1/2 pounds beef (I used a cheap sirloin)
-juice of 3 limes (not bottled juice!)
-1/4 cup fish sauce (found in Asian food section)
-1/2 red onion (thinly sliced)
-1 clove garlic (finely minced)
-1 serrano pepper (seeded and finely minced)
-1 tablespoon chili paste (the Asian kind with a rooster on the gold label)
-green onions (thinly sliced)
-fresh cilantro leaves
-1 tsp. sesame oil (optional)
-salt & pepper
-chili powder

Instructions:
-Rub beef with salt, pepper & chili powder. Grill, broil or otherwise cook to medium rare or medium depending on your own personal beef preferences.
-Whisk lime juice, garlic, fish sauce, chili paste & sesame oil. The sesame oil is optional. I had some around and thought it would be a nice touch – it was. Trader Joe’s carries it fairly cheap.
-Toss this dressing with red onions, green onions, cilantro and minced serrano pepper.
-Thinly slice beef. Toss into the dressing.
-Serve immediately. Or reheat slightly.

I use lots of cilantro in mine because I love cilantro. You might not love cilantro so much. Use less. I think some restaurants use basil or mint instead. I’m sticking with cilantro.

You can also adjust the spice to your liking with more or less serrano peppers and chili paste. I like my spice at a medium level and this recipe was perfect. Not too tame and not too wild.

Start to finish, this took only about 30 minutes to make.

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Look at what I got!!!
Originally uploaded by meliass.

A spinning wheel!! Whee!!

Sometime last year, I randomly mentioned to my mother that if she ever saw a reasonably priced and small spinning wheel at an auction, I’d love to have one. I didn’t think anything would ever come of it.

Then I got a message from Dad last night about stopping by to see him today as they had apparently stumbled upon one for me. I called Mom back and she told me the whole story. She went to get a loom from a volunteering friend and jokingly mentioned that all she needed to do now was find a spinning wheel for me. The friend happened to have one that she doesn’t use anymore. So now it’s sitting in my living room on permanent loan to see if I take to spinning.

I need to order some books. And some fiber. And some more fiber. The boyfriend told me that I might have a problem. He’s probably right.

Really I should see if the local yarn store offers a beginner’s spinning class. That might be my best bet.

In other news, the crying all the time spell is mostly over. I’m still not quite sleeping right. But at least I’m not crying all the time.

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