BOO!

Happy Halloween!!

Jabba the Hutt

I spent a solid 2-3 hours carving the two pumpkins I bought this year.  I enjoy carving them and getting cool candle-lit decorations.  Having yummy pumpkin seeds to cook and eat afterwords is also a plus.  This year the pumpkins were more squat in shape so I had to find patterns that would fit accordingly. 

Here's what I came up with for this year!

Batman!

To further celebrate the holiday - I watched as zombies invaded downtown last night.  This was the 2nd annual zombie walk in Paducah and they march  amble down Broadway St. towards the river.  It was fun to watch and there were some very dedicated zombies!  My favorite was a family with 3 young girls under 6 dressed in princess gowns & tiaras, zombie face paint and the one had her hand up and walked around going "grrr!  look daddy, I scared them!"  So adorable!  

 

Anyways, we survived the invasion and have furthered the fun with It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and episodes of Buffy.  :o)

"zombies are were people too"

 

hahahaha

KY vs. MD :: Round 2

As I learned how to use the phone system here at the Museum and who I need to call for certain questions, I've learned an interesting tidbit I want to share with you dear reader.

When using the land line, I don't have to dial the area code for Paducah phone numbers!  

While making phone calls for work this tends to trip me up and about half the time I get the automated "this call cannot be completed. Please hang up and try again" spiel.  Even when filling out forms, people don't always write their area code if they live in Paducah and this complicated matters until I caught on, learned the Paducah area code and added it in to the contact info for my own sanity.

The last time I didn't need to use the MD area code and could just dial the 7 digits straight-up to chat with a friend was somewhere around the time I was in 5th grade. It's been a habit now to use the area code when dialing any number so this no-area code business is like a strange kind of time warp.  

It's such an interesting difference to note and when I mention that here, people seemed surprised that we use area codes in MD for local calls.  How fun it is to keep picking up on the local quirks so stay tuned!

Everyone loves Pancakes!

My love of pancakes was rekindled with the discovery of this blog: Jim's Pancakes.  If you haven't already checked it out - do it now!  He makes *awesome* pancakes for his daughter and they are truly spectacular.  He has made appearances on several talk & cooking shows as well.  I stumbled across his blog by chance several months ago and was wowed by his pancake creations. 

Star power

So I set about finding the right proportions for making good pancakes with the boxed variety of Hungry Jack.  Just as I nailed the water to mix ratio, I ran out of mix and decided I wanted to make them from scratch.   Food Network.com to the rescue!  There I found a simple pancake mix that didn't need much altering or cutting down as I am cooking for just me.  I even bought a condiment squeeze bottle to make cleaner shapes & lines just like Jim!

Last weekend momm and I ventured to the closest Target - found in IL - where among other things, I bought some new pots & pans and a griddle pan.  Hooray!  I was now prepared to take my pancaking skills to new heights!  Here, dear reader, are some of my creations.

tortuga

The turtle was taken from Jim's 'how-to' on the blog - it was super cute and super easy so it made for a good place to start!

 I had some trouble with the batter clumping up a bit in the squeeze bottle so the outer edges burned a smidge.  They were still delicious!

fishes & flowers

 

    Here's to more weekend mornings full of fun & pancakes!!

rocket ship @ Chrissy's

"if you like the way I'm thinkin' baby wink at it"

I meant to post this up early last week, but time got away from me this week.  Work was busy with planning Girl Scout programs and working out details for this upcoming 2nd Saturday craft.  Plus I was working to ward off a cold with Vitamin C, buckets of water and the occasional Tylenol.  Early nights were added into the mix and it seems to have worked - hooray!  The weather shifted to instant Fall last Sunday with cooler temps in the mid 60-70s, chilly nights and gusty winds.  Yesterday was a quintessential 'blustery day' with grey skittering clouds, patches of sun & shadow and constant wind blowing.  The neighbors across the back have new wind chimes and I can hear them all day long with all the wind.

The real update fun however, is that I went out to a concert last weekend to go see

Jason Mraz!  

He was playing at Murray State which is about an hour away.  I bought my tickets kind of late, but it didn't seem like it would cause a problem.  Little did I know, dear reader, that once I arrived at the will call desk - no ticket!  Apparently, Tickermaster had some glitch because the seat I bought was in a section that was sold out already and so I had to wait a bit for the guy to give me a ticket for the back bleacher seats.  Midway through the opening act, he popped up with my actual ticket and so I got to be closer to the stage and in the actual seat I already paid for!

The openers - Luc & the Lovingtons - were alright.  Upbeat sound and the lead singer had some fun dance moves.  One of their songs was about an elephant, which was very interesting!

Jason was pretty great live!  I don't have a lot of his music, though I plan on it soon (yay for iTunes).  I'll also admit that I wasn't aware the several songs I liked were actually his for a good while; ie: the Remedy, Curbside Prophet.  Anyways, he intro'd several songs kind of oddly - one for a son he hasn't had yet and one for his ''baby mama' that he hasn't yet met.  The songs were good, but his intros seemed weird for a live concert.  haha.  Lots of good music and some good instrumental brass as well. 

At one point during a song he announced that he 'had to pee' and would be right back.  Uhhh...has that ever happened at any concert you've been to?!?  So Jason left the stage, the band kept playing instrumental solos and then Jason came back and finished the song.  Quite entertaining!

Jason and the opening band

He even called up a girl who'd been rocking out all concert up on stage for a song to dance with him and that was pretty sweet.  I'm sure it made her week to be up there! If I could figure out how to add my camera video on here I would post the clip I have with her on stage but alas, I'm not sure how to manage it.

In between songs he mentioned he's recording some new music and consequently has nightmares about possible horrible reviews he'd get.  Some of his jokes fell flat, but my favorite 'nightmare review' was this: when you rearrange the letters in Jason, it spells Jonas!  ha!

He played an awesome Thank You song for the start of his encore which was sweet and funny.  Starting out thanking 'the boys who kicked his ass at 17' and continuing to include thanking the janitors & road workers & environmentalists & all who do their part to keep things running. :o)   Then, he concluded with I'm Yours with flashy lights and a great ending with All You Need is Love.

As an added bonus, here's a link to one of songs I enjoyed, even with the interesting dichotomy of listen to your mama and wanting to make some girl a mama as well.  Whatever Mama Say

PS- the title lyrics are from one of my favorites of Jason's -Geek in the Pink so check it out!