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!

BBQ on the River

Each year Paducah hosts a 3-day festival of everything BBQ at the end of September - this year was the 16th ever.  In the weeks leading up to BBQ I had been told by coworkers what to expect: lots of food, limited parking, closed down streets, music and waves of people coming to use our bathrooms.  They were right of course, not that I doubted.  My office window looks out onto 2nd street and I watched Monday - Wednesday as the open parking lots downtown started to fill up with tents, smokers, piles of wood on trailer skids and booth fronts for the vendors.  Each booth raises money for a local charity and they raise around $500,000.  About 60 tons of chicken & pork are cooked during the event and it was really hard to work when our lobby started to smell like BBQ & wood smoke due to all the people coming in & out.  mmmmmm....

such a winning combo!

On top of BBQ on the River, we had a workshop running over the weekend and a Saturday event happening at work so there was lots to prepare for and plenty of excitement in store for the end of the week.  Thursday morning as I stepped out to my car ready to head into work, I inhaled and the early morning air carried a hint of wood-fired BBQ as the vendors prepared for the 11am start of the festival.

grilled shrimp

fried Oreos - so tasty!

In order to experience the fullness of the next three days, I headed out to the vendors for both lunch and dinner!  People at work were talking about their favorite places to get bbq and what I should try in my first go-round of BBQ.  I tried a good variety of food items over the 3 days and did a decent job of getting the most out of this delicious festival!

cheesecake on a stick!

Along with the awesome food, each afternoon & evening local bands played on the main stage.  Several that I heard were really good - mostly playing some classics from the 60s & 70s though there were some local/country-esque bands as well.  I explored Thursday night and window shopped along all the vendors - most sold jewelry or kid items.  That was the best plan because Friday & Saturday there were so many people that it was hard to walk and look at the booths without running into someone. By checking it out the first night, I had the chance to locate the booths I wanted to try food from and get a good look at the event.  There were some other entertainments ongoing - tug boat tours and riverfront activities.

Ohio river fish tank on wheels

I tried several BBQ sammiches from different booths of course! I did try one from the 2009 Grand Champs, and the pork was really tender and delicious.  They won again this year - making it 4 years in a row now so I'm proud to say I had a winning sammich!  I also tried the Cajun Corn as I'd been told it was wonderful.  It had just enough kick to it and was really tasty.  I think my favorite was the BBQ nachos.  It probably could have fed at least two people, but I ate it all myself anyways.  An interesting combination of the nacho cheese and BBQ sauce but it worked very well and they were super tasty!  Everything was wonderful and delicious and I certainly enjoyed this Paducah tradition!  :)

BBQ nachos - amazing!

local haunts

Brace yourselves dear reader.  What I am about to post is highly suspect of creating feelings of awe & jealousy!

Right here in Paducah, KY is a brand-spanking-new Panera Bread.  Some of  you know how much I enjoy Panera and can imagine the many happy sighs of having one that's nearby.  This however, is not your run-of-the-mill Panera - no sir!  For starters, it has a Drive-Thru.  Yes, dear reader, a drive-thru Panera! In case you doubt the amazingness of this concept - behold:

1st Panera drive-thru sighting

I'd been waiting to write about this until after I'd been through the drive-thru.  An early morning, overcast with a slight drizzle and cool temps had me pulling through for a hot chocolate without a need to ever leave the car!  I've never seen a Panera like this before and am kind of amazed there aren't more of them around.  

Walking in to place a dine-in order is also somewhat mind boggling as it was the most high-tech Panera I've seen so far.  After placing my order at the register, I was handed a square pager usually reserved for crowded restaurant waiting lines.  I was able to find a seat, get a drink and wait for the pager to vibrate & light up indicating my order was ready at the counter for pick-up.  Crazy. 

Seeing as I drive-by to-and-from work each day, it's tempting to just pull in, or thru!, and grab a quick snack. So far, so good and I can't wait for some more brisk fallish weather to inspire more hot chocolate moments in the future.  :o)

Working in the City

"It's been a hard days night, I should be sleeping like a log" - the Beatles

The last couple of weeks have been work-heavy and super busy with events and the first event I planned and ran and survived.  After Labor Day I was busy preparing things for the Super City - Quilt City event.  

This is a joint effort between the museum and Metropolis, IL - the home of Superman!  Metropolis is just across the river and both places host some quilt activities, speakers, etc.  I had some hands-on demos to monitor and oversee - bow tie blocks, yo-yos and some local artists showing their own stuffs.  It wasn't too overwhelming which was good, just a normal day at work.  Except it was a Saturday but that didn't really register as odd once I was actually working.  I did get to see what they have on the Metropolis side as I went over with my boss so I could meet some people and see how they set up their quilt show & vendors and such.  It was a nice set up and decent turnout as well.

Saturday night I went to see the Paducah Symphony orchestra for their opening concert of the year.  They have a new conductor - Raffaele Ponti - and he was amazing!  He was very expressive with his conducting and had plenty of energy and excitement for the night.  I wanted to get up and play for Ponti - he was that inspiring to watch!  Reminded me of Dr. Naylor and how much fun he made the ensemble.

Sunday I had a pleasant morning going to Mass, sitting outside, and talking to both Liz & Chrissy! Hooray for phone calls and good friends!  I only needed to be at work for a few hours in the afternoon which went by quickly as we helped several people baste their quilts. 

This past week I spent with most of my focus on the Educator's Reception which was my first actual planned event.  Eep!  We invite local teachers/educators to the museum to see what activities we offer and provide for school groups.  Tours and hands-on things to help reinforce their curriculum points and expose the kids to creativity & art.  I had plenty of awesome helpers and the night went very well.  Had a good turnout and talked to lots of people about the possibilities open to their students.  Hopefully we'll get a great response for tours & field trips this year!

Now I've got a little bit of breather before the workshop this coming week, events on Saturday.  However, I'm also looking forward to this week as it is BBQ on the River!  Apparently tons of people come in to cook BBQ for several days and there's music and good times and no parking and lots of fun.  Should be tasty and exciting! BBQ on the river

So I've survived my first official events and duties and am glad to have those under the belt.  I'll be able to work more with what we have to develop some more projects and activities with more understanding of what is available.  I've also been feeling more settled in town and more knowledgeable about where things are and have ventured into some more shops and areas to see what's nearby!