New Thing #83: Attended OMSI: After Dark

I joined adults 21 and over for OMSI After Dark. The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry hosts a once a month activity for adults where they serve alcohol and bar all kids from entering the building from 7:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. on the fourth wednesday of each month during the summer. I was especially interested in going because they have a CSI: The Experience exhibit where you can go and solve the crimes for yourself :) It is leaving in early September and I had to see it prior to it going away. Amanda, my friend who, like me, loved the series before it got stupid, attended with me.

We did many of the small activities that you NEVER can get to when there are kids around: The hair bottle rockets and the ball room. We did the earthquake house and the static electricity ball (see my pic for more details, haha). We spent an hour waiting for the CSI exhibit, but once we got in, we went through twice, which was good. They had the miniatures there from the miniature killer episodes, which was awesome too! It was loads of fun! But as a side note, go through the exhibit first because otherwise the line gets longer and longer and we missed out on the special expert talks because we were in line, which was to bad.

New Thing #82: Fun With Propogating Succulents and Planting a Cactus

Kevin had this beautiful yellow pot that had his college cactus plant in it. The cactus had died. I had been saving "big yellow" for some indoor plant options because the pot is so pretty. I decided yesterday after Erin gave me a cactus that I would put a SMALL cactus scene in it. Rather then one LARGE cactus, I put 6 small cactuses in it: I had two clippings from Laura that are prickly and small and round. I got the one from erin which is three branches and shaped with small little points and bumps and the third I picked up at the nursery and it's a "panda" cactus which means it has little brown tips and is really soft. It is the one pictured here. I thought with those conflicting textures and heights, it would look really nice indoors in the winter. I also got a clipping off the panda which I'm propogating and I got a $3 cactus that is red and green and looks like a water lily. I also propogated that too in half because it had already a well developed baby with roots. So now I have 4 pots of cactuses! I also tried to fix my aloe plant because it was having a hard time after I overwatered it. I'm not sure if it's going to live or not but I sliced off a few of the shriveling stalks and hope that will work. The new growth looks firm and healthy, so it might be all right. But the other majority of the plant looks pissed still. After referring to the infinite wisdom of the internet, they said that aloe vera plants are remarkably hardly, so maybe it will live. Will keep you posted. Right now, the heat is good for it though. They will stay out for a while longer.

New Thing #81: Baked New Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe (Great!)

For my 26th birthday barbeque, I baked two dozen+ thick and chewy chocolate chip cookies from “The New Best Recipe Cook Book.” That book is all about the “science” of cooking. These cookies turned out phenomenally well – the catch was that I added an extra egg yolk and higher proportion of brown sugar to white sugar. They had a ruffled texture on top (not smooth, slick or oily looking on top like normal home-baked cookies) and were very chewy. I didn’t have any chocolate chips so I substituted the dutch semi-sweet chocolate sprinkles. That was also really good. I gave everyone a little goodie bag of cookies when they left. Here is a picture of what they would look like with chocolate chips. Very, very good recipe!

Sugar Dance

This is a perfect example of Sugar's prance dance. This isn't Sugar, but it's an image I found on the internet but it made me nostalgic and happy that Sugar is my cat and still happy and healthy.

Happy 15th birthday Sugar!

New Thing #80: Zumba

Tried a Zumba class for the first time at the Y. It's this high-energy dance class were you shake your booty and pump your arms and rock out to latin music. It's really kinda nice. With my salsa class I took in college and with my background in dance, I found it really fun and challenging. It was fun to go "full out!"

New Thing #79: Learned to Tie My Own Obi

Today at Tea class, I tied my first obi all by myself! I was so excited :) I kinda want to go home right now and do it again :) But I made many notes in my tea journal and hopefully I'll be able to do it again.

So, we've set our date: 8.28.10. Haven't communicated it out yet – figured it was wayyy to far in advance. But I can't believe that we're locked in and good to go. K and I have been so ecstatic talking about it – sometimes to the point where we are like oh my goooooooosh shut up! but for the most part it's been fun. We found our venue at the Crown Ballroom. It's a really nice place that's all inclusive. We decided to go with a place like that instead of a "do-it-yourself" joint where we have to worry about the caterer charging us extra for ice and and setting the tables ourselves. But we do have to start saving now.

Nadine lent me her wedding dress. Another fantastic piece of good news. It was the one we picked out for her at the NYC Macy's and if I had been getting married, I would have gotten that one myself. My mom is really bummed I'm not getting my own wedding gown but I think she's being really ridiculous. After all, I'm not spending hundreds of dollars on something to not even wear for an entire day and then have my children play dress up in it for years to come... some how just seems ridiculous. I think mom is scared too. I think she's scared of change. Like when I told her I was having the wedding up in Portland in the evening, she said "Well, I can't come." and I was just like "what? now COME ON!" first of all she tells me to get engaged, get engaged, get engaged and now that I am ... she astounds me with the fact that she won't make every effort to get to my wedding. Especially because we are going to HELP her get to my wedding. It pissed me off soooo bad! I think she kinda feels like the carpet has been pulled out from underneath her lately what with applying for Medicaid and struggling with her help and everything she goes through with her illness.... it's really a challenge.

New Thing #78: Engaged!

I got engaged!!!! AHHHHHHH