Stuology

I finally got around to making my black eyed peas, and made a small bowl with some leftover ham with 40 minutes still left of New Year’s Day. Tomorrow, I’m making the rest of them with collard greens, rice*, more leftover ham, and hot sauce. Yum!

New Year’s Eve was calm and non-eventful. We had dinner, some drinks, played Trivia Pursuit and watched some Simpson’s. Ada even woke up a little after midnight so we could say happy New Year to her. Nothing bad happened, although I suspect if I went out with Mac, nothing bad would happen. I would have the best New Year ever.

I had a great 2005. Mac and I bought a house. Ada was born. It is hard to beat those two highlights. Christmas this year was at my house for the first time ever, and both Mac’s immediate family and my immediate family were together.

Next year will be just as wonderful, if not better. I have no doubt.

Thanks to chernobylred for pointing this out:
Have a Melly Cristmas!

For those of us in Kansas City, I don’t know how much publicity this gets, so here you go:

Free Holiday Cab Running Again
For the 22nd year, Baptist-Lutheran Medical Center and the Yellow Cab Company will be sponsoring the Holiday Cab program.

Kansas City, Missouri - The purpose of the Holiday Cab program is to help keep the streets safer over the holidays and to raise awareness about the dangers of drinking and driving. The program offers partygoers a free ride home from restaurants and bars within the Kansas City metropolitan area.

The program, which will run each night from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m., begins Tuesday, Dec. 21, and ends Sunday, Jan. 2, at 3 a.m.

To access the service, all people need to do is call 816-276-7899. The first available cab will be sent to the bar or restaurant to provide a ride. Rides will only be provided from public places, such as restaurants and bars, and the driver will only take the person home, not to another bar or restaurant.

The ride is free for the first $25 worth of fare, or about 16 miles.

Volunteers are needed to answer phones from 7 to 10 p.m. each night of the program. To sign up to volunteer, please call 816-276-7866.

I’m sitting by a warm fire, sipping on hot chocolate by the soft glow of a monkey lamp. Thanks to chernobylred for the ginormous bag of warm tummy mix, and to mckitterick for the lamp. It is going in Ada’s room so I can peek on my daughter by the glow of a monkey head*. How perfect!

Okay, I’m getting one of these dogs for my next pet.

First: Thanksgiving
Our Thanksgiving was exhausting. We altered our plans to attend the funeral, and headed down to visit my family Saturday and Sunday. Ada ended up getting sick with a fever that reached 102.4. The poor girl was miserable and she let everybody know it. She spent more time crying than not. She didn’t sleep more than a couple of hours at a time. The last four days have been filled with trying to get her fever down, get her to eat and get her to stop crying. I stayed home with her yesterday, and I had to slowly feed her pedialyte via a dropper because that was the only thing that she would not just spit back out, and I did not want to have to take her to the emergency room because she was dehydrated. She did sleep through the night last night for the first time in about 4 days, and she woke up and ate again this morning. Even with Mac and I taking shifs, I’m completely exhausted, my eyes are bloodshot, and I came to work today just so I could take a nap.

Second: Kitchen
My stove is hooked up! With Ada care, I haven’t had time to bake anything, but I have used the stove top and it works great! I have a list of dinners on me, and if I can get out of work in time, I will stop by the grocery store to stock up my bare fridge/freezer and get to baking. Our dining room is done being painted, and the doors are off all the cabinets waiting to be sanded and stained. The countertops, sink and faucet will probably have to wait until next year when we have more money. It is looking so much better though. I’m excited to have it done.

Third: Bathroom/closet
We have the paint for our bathroom and closet. I started going through the closet and packing up all the clothes that I have outgrown. We just need to tear out the old closet bars, paint and put in the new closet organisers. The bathroom was outfitted with the really cheap stock cabinets and light fixtures. I really want to replace the light fixtures and maybe frame the mirrors, however, this will have to wait until next year as well.

We are cancelling our trip to Dave and Buster’s this Saturday. My throat is killing me now, although I could be better by then, but eh. If we can get a babysitter for Ada, we may try to catch the Harry Potter movie. It has been awhile since we’ve gone out to see one. We didn’t get to see Serenity and I still haven’t seen Stay. Me missing a Ewan McGregor movie is unheard of–well, until now.

We also want to dig into our kitchen, so it is in order by Christmas. There are some other projects that we would like to dig into as well. Anybody who wants to come over and work on our house is more than welcome
My mom and brother’s birthday is Feb. 12th. I usually go back for dinner with them, but depending on the weather, they may come here to go out. My brother wants to go to Dave and Buster’s. Hopefully, they will have some of the cooler games in by then. There was that big area by Dave and Buster’s that was still being built. I’m really, really hoping that it will be a part of Dave and Buster’s. I know in other ones, the midway is separate from the bar/dining area. That isn’t the case with this one, but that building that is under construction is connected to D&B via a walkway. I’m hoping that will be the midway and the area that is the midway now will be dedicated to bar/dining.

Dave & Busters was fun last night. The best part of it was the weather–still at 69 degrees when we left at 11:00pm. That made the balconies and rooftop bar the most pleasant place to be.

They started us off with a game of “find your way through the construction maze to the front door.” The place that D&B is at is Legends at the Speedway. It is still under a lot of construction. So far there is going to be a 14 screen, rocking chair stadium seats movie theatre, Hooters, an Irish Pub, Coyote Ugly, a shoe store (don’t remember the name), and the clothing store that I forgot the name of as well. My brain isn’t working so well this morning. I can’t believe all the development that is going on in that area. The last time we went out there, Legends was just a big mess of cranes. The fountain* in the middle of Legends wasn’t finished yet, but they did have a ginormous Christmas tree up already.

Once we got there, it was a game of “grab the table.” They were not set up for the kind of function that they had last night. They said that capacity was about 1,200 and there were only 700 on the guest list, but everybody was trying to eat at the same time and there were not even enough tables. It was kind of funny seeing people dressed up and then sitting on the floor to eat. There was plenty of food and drinks though, and they gave everybody a card with about 40 credits to play games. I only saw three games that ended up out of commission by the end of the evening and the power up stations were not working yet, but other than that, they are ready to go!

There was a big area by D&B that was still under construction. At first I was wondering if they were building a parking garage, but it didn’t look quite right for one, however there was a walkway that connected this building to D&B. I’m hoping that it will be a Battletech Center because there isn’t one at the moment.

The official opening is today, and they said that they would be open for lunch. It is tempting to go since it is only about a 15 minute drive from work, but the wait might not be worth it. We are still planning on going on Nov. 19th.

For sale: kitchen appliances

All of these came with our house, so except for the dishwasher, I have no idea of age.

Fridge: It has an icemaker in the freezer, but we haven’t used it. It sounds like it is going to explode everytime the motor turns off, but so far, it runs and keeps the food cold.

Stove: Electric, drop-in. Back large burner works sparodically. Oven cooks hotter in the front than in the back. However, it does cook.

Dishwasher: Only about 1 year old, but it doesn’t like glasses. It has eaten 4 of my glasses, and it doesn’t like to get the glasses clean.

What a way to sell, but hey, I’m honest. All the appliances work, so if you know somebody who desparately needs them. I really wanted to sell them for a little bit so I can offset the cost of paint. They may make great investments for somebody more handy than I that can fix the stove burner and noisy fridge motor and then resell. The dishwasher, well, it was just a cheap dishwasher.

If they don’t sell, I’ll probably Freecycle. It is still cheaper than paying to have then hauled off.

I think that my camera is broken. I’m getting tired, so I didn’t feel like looking into it much, but the lens is stuck and it is making this horrible grinding noise. Hrmmm…

My cheesecake–hopefully the last thing that I will make in my crappy oven–is almost cool enough that I can put on the ganache and put it in the fridge for the night. Even with occasionally turning it, it still cooked too much in one corner. It isn’t that bad though.

I know, though, as soon as I get into bed, Ada is going to wake up. She has been asleep for awhile. Mac got up with her this morning, so I should do the night shift.