Sick Day

I don't often catch colds that require me to miss work. And I do have to say I've felt worse than I do right now and have gone to work (and parties!). Today however, I woke up feeling like someone was pounding my chest with every cough, so I called in sick. Having had a very busy long weekend, I think my body just needed the rest.

So, how was everyone's Thanksgiving? John and I celebrated with my MIL, BIL Mike and family and SIL's sister's family. It was a great meal and lots of fun stories. Now, really. Can a Thanksgiving meal really ever be awful? I can't say I've been to one that has even been mediocre. They've all been fabulous. I'm lucky to have family and friends who know how to cook!

Speaking of cooking, we had Turkey Part II on Saturday down at Breton Bay. John and I were off work Friday, so we headed down early to clean up the house and shop for all the groceries. At the McKay's parking lot was this car:


Do you see it? Piled up to the ceiling? All except the driver's seat... TRASH. And it was a fairly new car. I mean, I can understand having a bag or an old newspaper in the back seat. Seriously though. How does this car smell inside? There's gotta be mold and mice colonies in there! John said it's a lifestyle.

We were sad Sean, Val, Linda, Nate and Gabrielle couldn't make it down. The gang arrived between 1:00 and 3:30. They played cards and got a mini poker tournament going. Katie won $25! She beat Freddy, William, Joey and Mike (in that order). Then, we had dinner:


Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, salad, snow peas, rolls (with Katie's grandma's pumpkin pie butter (yum!)) and apple pie. After our meal (and Maryland's stomping of NC State!), we took a walk down to the pier to work off dinner.


On the way back, we took a tour of one of the houses for sale. Although the house was stuck in a decorator's time warp, it has to be the biggest one within Breton Bay Estates (over 3000 sq feet). Freddy is considering getting some family members together to buy it.

After our walk, we played Michelle's favorite small party game, Charades. It was a lot of fun, pitting me, Joey, William and Katie against John, Freddy, Michelle and Mike. Our team won after a tie breaker round.

Here's Freddy, Katie and Mike:


William, Katie and Mike:


And Freddy wrapping up Katie's feet in newspaper 'cuz her feet were cold. This must have occurred after I went to bed. We do have blankets and stuff!


It was so much fun! I can't wait for our next holiday... 12:12, of course!

Big Game

Although there was serious hype surrounding the Colts/Patriots game the other week, the big one of the year in the DC area is the Redskins vs. Cowboys. Despite Dallas’ win Sunday, I will admit the Redskins looked really good. I was flipping between John’s NASCAR race (with 4 laps left) and the game (with 4 minutes left). The Redskins were marching down the field. It was one of those “I can’t watch” moments. I chose to stay with the (uneventful) race, figuring 4 minutes in a football game usually lasts 15 minutes and the race would be over sooner than that. I was a little sad for the ‘Skins. Glad my team won, but to me, it looked like the Redskins played their asses off and deserved to walk away with a win. If it weren’t for that pesky interception with only a few minutes to go...

I haven’t paid much attention this year, but it seems Terrell Owens hasn’t been spewing a lot of crap in the press. He did say, in his post-game interview with big head Pam Oliver, that he still doesn’t get any respect. Just shut up and play!

Not much else going on. John’s a little under the weather. Had pizza Friday night with William and Freddy. We hadn’t seen Freddy since Halloween! Saturday was just a bit of shopping. We went to the ginormous beer/wine/liquor store near us and it was very crowded. I like looking at the microbrew singles -- lots of funny beer names. We stopped at the new Tuesday Morning store in Four Corners before dinner at my parents’ on Saturday night. It’s amazing how neatly organized everything is -- it helps being a new store and all! The one in Laurel is a big mess, but I also think it’s in a smaller space than some of the others.

I’m looking forward to a very short work week and TURKEY at the sibling-in-laws. So glad I took Friday off. Not to shop, but to prepare for Turkey Part Deux. We’re heading to Leonardtown for the weekend. It seems like forever since we were last there! Hope everyone has a safe and fun Thanksgiving!

Forty Days

It’s 40 days until Christmas. I already started doing some holiday shopping, but it’s getting harder each year to come up with ideas for what to get my parents. For the past 2 years, John and I have been giving our close friends GC’s to a restaurant. We stole this initiative from Sean & Val, who give us GC’s to Maggiano’s every year and we all go together. This year’s contender is a good one, but I want to try the restaurant across the street from it before we decide. So secretive, huh?

So, you want to know about what happened with the Nylon Undies?

It was a very tiring trip, but a nice getaway. The actual selection of stores at the VF Outlets weren’t all that great, but if you’re looking for cheap undies, bras, nightgowns or jeans, this is the place for you! If you like “mom jeans”, those can be had for $10.

Being a very cloudy Saturday and a bit weary from the 2 ½ hour drive, I wasn’t really in the mood to comb the racks for bargains. This was even more apparent when we discovered the kitchen and housewares mecca -- Reading China and Glass. Oh, how I could have spent the entire day in there! We cruised the small appliance section, looked for soup spoons and picked up our free gift (a small berry-scented candle).

After shopping, we headed to the inn and took a nap. For dinner, we tried to get into the OG. The OG (Olive Garden) is the bane of our society. I don’t know why I try to go there! It doesn’t seem to matter what day of the week it is, there’s always a 40 minute wait. The food is OK at best. We looked on our handy dandy map provided by the inn and decided to go to Nino’s, which was only a block away from where we were staying. Nino’s was a small little place with 15 tables or so. They didn’t serve alcohol but you could bring your own wine. The patrons all seemed like regulars. They all knew the wait staff by name and the wait staff knew them. I had a delicious Chicken Marsala and Johnny had a stromboli. I’m glad the OG failed us, because we ended up having a really nice meal.

Sunday, after learning the antiques places opened at 7:30 AM (it was around 8:00 AM at this point?) we got ready for the day. We headed down to breakfast. AYCE BACON! That’s right! All you can eat! I love breakfast buffets! We actually only hit two antiques places. Both were indoors with hundreds of vendors in each. The first place we hit was Renneger’s. Lots of glassware, coins, toys, jewelry. I saw some Looney Toons glasses for a good price, but I didn’t need them.

One lady was selling hand knit sweaters and ponchos. She was chatting with another customer and I don’t think she ever stopped to take a breath. I looked at some old knitting magazines, but she didn’t have them displayed in a way that would make it easy to browse. Had they been standing up in their bin so you could flip through them, I probably would have found a few things to buy. They were just piled flatly in the bin and I didn’t feel like emptying them out to look through them. Her loss.

The second place was Stoudt’s Antique Mall. This place seemed like it was mostly furniture. I didn’t see anything that looked like a bargain. We cruised through fairly quickly but managed to buy some little porcelain knobs ($1 each) for my new bookcases.

Prior to this trip, I scoured the interwebs for yarn stores in Reading. We headed back towards town and I left John in the car while I went fiber hunting. I think I was in the shop about 45 minutes. The ladies in there were very nice and if I lived in Reading, I think this could be the type of place I’d hang out. The surrounding shops looked really cute too, but we didn’t go in any of them.

Looking for lunch, we decided to try this place advertised as a must-see. Apparently, the town’s bars aren’t open on Sundays. So much for the Peanut Bar! We ended up at Smokey Bones BBQ and had a yummy pulled pork lunch. Afterwards, we hit the book store and Tuesday Morning. I found a few stocking stuffers there. I must go back to the one near us to get some more!

We headed back to the inn and watched some football and napped. Dinner was hot wings and Caesar salad at the hotel bar. It's odd to be in a place where you can still smoke. I've gotten so used to the bars here in Monkey and PG Counties being smoke-free!

As we were nearing home, we stopped off at the new Costco to look at their flat screen TV selection. A pack of NY Strip Steaks, a 26" HDTV and some Jamaican Beef Patties later, we were finally HOME! As much as I love to travel, it was really nice to be home. Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Land of the Nylon Undies

When I was younger, outlets and outlet malls weren’t as common as they are these days. At least once a year in the mid 70’s, my family would head up to Reading to the VF Outlets. It’s located on the site of a former hosiery mill and the original outlet was opened to get rid of surplus hosiery, lingerie, pj’s and robes.

I don’t recall how I occupied my time on these trips, because a 10-year-old really doesn’t have much interest in underwear shopping. All I remember about this place was miles and miles of nylon nightgowns and underwear. And Lee® jeans.

So, that’s where we’re headed this weekend... Reading, PA. It’s an anniversary present from my MIL. Not the “Reading” part, but a B&B getaway. We’d like to check out a B&B at Deep Creek Lake some time; it comes highly recommended by Sean. My MIL presented us with brochures from DCL, but also showed us a brochure about Reading. One of the main reasons I selected Reading is because there are a lot of antique shops near there and John loves to look at old, dusty stuff. Since it looks like John might be coming down with a cold, perhaps DCL would have been a more relaxing choice!

Other than antiquing, of course I want to check out the outlets. And... I’ve scoped out a few yarn shops near the inn and along the way. I even looked up one scrapbooking/stamping shop. It’s going to be such a fun trip for John, isn’t it? Must remember to load up the car with sudoku and crossword puzzles so he’ll have something to do while I’m in the shops.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

A Few Pics

Let's see if Blogger will behave today and let me load the Halloween pics I wanted to share last week...

SWEEEET! (as Roger would say). Here's John in his "Wendy's" wig I made and me as Meg Griffin from "Family Guy". The Meg costume is up for grabs if anyone wants to dress as Meg next year. Pros of this costume: you can eat and drink with ease and it's comfy.

I had forgotten I wanted John and I to dress up as another duo this year, but never got around to making the costumes. Oddly, I would have been another "Meg". Maybe next year!



Wendy is a big Elvis fan. Originally "Ghost of Elvis", he was somehow resurrected by pork skewers and beer:



Ultraman was very considerate in providing a clue as to who he was, in case you youngsters didn't know:



Joey was looking HOT, wasn't he? We think he finally found his true self:


Woot!