Another Craft Show Downtown Modesto

I did a new venue on Saturday in Downtown Modesto. It was the first time in this location for the venue organizer so I thought I'd give it a try. I got lucky and it was the one nice day in a week of crappy weather!

I was set up right in front of the movie theater.

This set up worked really well since there were people walking on both sides (in front and behind my booth). Also it gave a lot of room for multiple people to be looking at my stuff. Definitely a winner for a non corner set up.

There was live music played by teens all day. They did a FANTASTIC job and were so entertaining! Some people complained that it was too loud but I was down a bit from them so it was ok.

It would have been nice to have a helper with me for when I had to go to the bathroom and to be able to look around a bit but the people next to me were nice enough to keep an eye out while I ran to the bathroom lol

I did a tiny bit better than the last 3 shows I have done so not too bad for not making anything new since my last show. I signed up to do another one on the 2nd. I want to try and make up a few Valentines wine bags. I'm down to THREE non Christmas bags and 2 of those are part of the original ones I made lol. I think I might just put those in my donation pile for the next time I need to make a raffle donation. 

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Reno, Continued

OK here we go, I'm up early (kind of) on Sunday before all the kids start sucking up the wifi lol.

So anyhow, headed home from RENO! We are driving along and some people are putting their chains on. It starts to get where a lot of people are putting them on so we pull over and Scott puts them on (thank God we bought them!) We then continue to drive for awhile thinking we didn't really need to put them on yet and maybe he should take them off. But then we get to a point where there are some people without chains and they are all over the road and we are like whew, so glad we had them on.

And then the traffic just stops. It creeps along every so often but for the most part we are just sitting. We saw these people in front of us throw trash out the window and then later saw it was a diaper. So gross.

creeping a long. Stuck between 2 exits. Somewhere in here we pulled over and got out and peed on the side of the road (with a blanket between the doors)

Sitting some more. This cop comes through with his sirens blazing. No one can move. Siren keeps going off.  We were actually behind the truck and got inched over because he pushed a car towards us. He finally got out and walked up and made everyone move a couple inches so he could get through. While he was doing that the truck backed up and either almost hit the car we moved for or DID hit the car we moved for, not entirely sure but I was really glad we weren't behind it at that point.

Hours later. Dreaming of Taco Bell. We were like it's only .6 miles. I could so walk that and walk back and you'd probably still be sitting here. The traffic would move a couple feet and we'd be like well maybe it's going to move. 

Here's where we were sitting. Notice all the closed roads. Somewhere in here I climbed in the backseat of the car and peed in a Wendy's cup.  Apparently my bladder holds a small Wendy's beverage.

Finally 7-8 hours later they let us get off the freeway. They won't let us turn to the right. We go left, can't make another left to go to Taco Bell lol but they make us get BACK ON THE FREEWAY going back the other direction. This is where Scott loses his shit. He gets back off the freeway at the next exit where we know there is food (he's for sure going to fade away at this point, he'd make a horrible contestant on Survivor). We get off the freeway and once again the traffic is stopped. Scott gets OUT OF THE CAR lmao so I go around to take the wheel as he walks to Shell station. Apparently he yelled at the guy at the front of the line who was holding up traffic and got him to move. 

I drove along and he waved at me not to turn into the shell station road so I went up one further to go to the grocery store parking lot. I'm so glad we had been in this shopping center several times on our way to go camping.  I hit a bump and all the snow that had accumilated on the top of the car fell on the windshield. I made it into the parking lot and cleaned the windshield off then moved the car to a better parking spot. 

Eventually Scott came back with some beef jerky lol. Personally I would have walked a tiny bit farther and went to McDonald's. 

So the parking spot was right by a Pizza place. We got in and of course a long line to be seated. I was like can I order before I sit? She said no. I'd have to order it to go. So I did. I went to go to the bathroom and wahaaalaa there was a bar! So I sat at the bar and we had a pitcher of beer and I inhaled this small loaf of bread almost entirely by myself. We ate almost a whole pizza. Diet Schmiet. 

We knew we would be sleeping in the car. There was no where to stay and we were not going to drive back to Reno. I'm glad I threw a bunch of blankets in there and my pillow.  We went overt to CVS and the grocery store looking for hand warmers but they didn't have any. We didn't really need them anyways, the car was plenty warm enough with our body heat.

Plus, I never really slept haha. I'd maybe doze off for a couple minutes then I'd wake up. There was a snow plow going in the parking lot ALL NIGHT LONG. I was pretty pissed when I woke up and the parking lot wasn't spic and span. Like what was he really doing? Just keeping me awake with his jingly bell sounding snow plow.

When we were both fully awake we attempted to park closer to Starbucks in the same parking lot which just ended up me yelling at Scott to stop yelling. Finally parked and then we got into Starbucks to wait in the long line to use the bathroom.  We got 2 large coffees then I checked the only thing that seemed to be updating and it said the road was open. So we jumped in the car and we were off.

We got up to right before the exit we were sent off of the night before when the traffic stopped again. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! Thankfully after about 10 minutes they finally let us through.

Up and over the mountain

I've never been so glad to NOT see snow lol. Obviously we are flat landers and do not usually deal with the snow and it's probably safe to say we will NEVER go to Reno in the winter again!

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Reno Trip Part 1

I'm so tired I'm blogging laying down on my bed. I keep meaning to write some stuff but then I give up and just go lay down and veg out until I fall asleep.


I think I remember why I fell off the wagon of my diet last time. I spend all time after work cooking and washing dishes. I just had to go out to the unattached garage in the rain to change the laundry over because there are no f*cking clean towels. It feels like I just washed a ton of towels. Where did they go? I'm about to just hide a couple for myself so at least "I" have a clean towel and everyone else can figure out out for themselves.


So ahem. I am backlogged on blogging because I am kind of an in order type of girl and need to blog about our weekend away! We went to Reno on January 5th. My friend had tickets for a free weekend at the Peppermill they weren't going to be able to use and I jokingly said well heck I'll use them! Then she talked to her husband and the next thing I knew he had put them in my name and um it was for the NEXT NIGHT. Scott and I hemmed and hawed about it a bit since there was some snow in the forecast but it looked like there was a good enough window that we would be able to make it back.


Of course the Thursday night I decided to have a full on cold. Snot, coughing etc. I stayed home on Friday and washed all our clothes (even clothes that weren't mine, and no one thanked me either, see if I do that again), took cold meds and waited for Scott to get home. When he got home we went by my friends to get the paper with the info, stopped to get CHAINS, just in case you know, and some better cold meds. Also I bought the most disgusting cough drops ever made.


We went through the drive thru at Wendy's and got a grilled chicken sandwich and a side salad and of course a diet coke and then we were on our way!


When we got to Reno it was COLD. We got all checked in with our $200 free food and $300 spa credit woohoo.  The room was nice with a big fancy tub that I never ended up taking a bath in lol.

After we got in the room I remembered I left my Kindle in the car so I had to go all the way back out to the car (parked on the 5th floor in the garage). When I was walking back there was a girl with a thin tube top and skirt with heels walking in too. I'm not sure how she wasn't just one big Popsicle. Brr. 

Since I was going to the car I took $5 with me and played a few slots on the way back (I'm cheap and find the cheap penny machines). When I got back Scott wanted to get something to eat. I wasn't all that hungry so I hemmed and hawed at the menu. I didn't want to mess up my diet already! I finally decided on some jumbo prawns which were expensive but hey we had free food lol. Scott got a full plate of huevos rancheros for the same price.

After eating we went to bed and I slept off and on between coughing. Saturday morning we got to sleep in until like 7 am when we were wide awake lol and then went to breakfast/brunch.

Still keeping it in my calorie range (didn't eat all that bacon, just 2)

When I was checking in the guy asked "do you want a mountain view or a pool view?" I said which ever you think is nicer. He gave me the pool view.

unfortunately it was empty lol

It started to get super windy on Saturday

We heard a crash and saw this trash can had blown over. There were white caps in the pool!

Good thing we didn't have to go outside! We had a 3:30 appointment at the spa. Since we were late making an appointment all they had available was a 25 minute Swedish massage. We both got booked for one but not "together", just at the same time. 

When we got there they called me in and took me into the locker room where they gave me a locker and a robe (ack I have to undress here???). Also some flip flops. After a bit the girl came back for me and took me up to this room where everyone was laying on chaise lounges. A bunch of them appeared to be sleeping but I don't know how anyone could sleep in a place with other random strangers. Unless maybe they were there all day and had already had a massage. 

Eventually the masseuse came and got me and I had a very nice relaxing massage. Afterwards she told me I should sit in the "salt room" since it would help my sinuses. I sat in there for like 3 minutes. No phone, no book, nothing to read, no tv. I guess I'm not good at just sitting lol. Also I was worried Scott would be stressing out if he was finished and I wasn't there yet.  I eventually figured out how to get out of the place. Got dressed in front of strangers and then went out to settle up the bill. $189, charge it to the room hahahaha.  I wasn't sitting long before Scott came out feeling like a hundred bucks. He was like "we should do that more often!" Yep, next time we get another free weekend (not in the winter...)

After our massage I was starving so we went to find something to eat. We decided sushi would be a good choice. So many little restaurants in this place. There was a bit of a wait but we opted to sit at the "sushi bar" so we walked right in. They were kind of pushing the all you can eat sushi but it was pretty expensive (even if we weren't paying) and we were still trying to be good so we just ordered 3 rolls.  It did come with some bread too so that was the bad part of the good meal that I ate most of lol.

yummy yummy! Afterwards we did some penny machine playing (found a couple that only had like 9 lines!)  and Scott tipped the cocktail waitress when she came around so we got a few rounds of drinks until we got tipsy and tired of playing.

I couldn't hardly sleep all night, probably from too much caffeine. I was also worried about the storm that was coming in and if we were going to make it home. Scott seemed less worried when he woke up so I figured we were ok. 

We got up and went and had the brunch buffet where I tried to pick out enough food that it was worth it but I wasn't going to totally kill all my calories for the day. 

I've never really had eggs benedict so I thought I'd try one. Then I decided the bread part of it wasn't worth the calories so just ate the top part.

I went back and got some crab legs but the big ones were super salty so I didn't eat much of those either.

Went to look at desserts but nothing seemed worth it so just got more shrimp.

Buffets are really a waste when you are on a diet lol.

After breakfast we packed up and checked out. For the whole weekend it was only $54 that wasn't covered (tips). Not too shabby! Well plus some gambling money but we just each used some of our cash we had stashed away. I MAYBE played $40 of my own money if that and I think Scott was about the same.

This is pretty long so I'll continue with our trip home in the next post (PS this took me 2 days to write since the internet went out while I was writing it lol)

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Skinnytaste Chicken Cacciatore Instant Pot

Oh my gosh I'm so tired but I'm waiting for my little quiche cups I need for breakfast to get done cooking before I can go to bed.

I like cooking and doing meal prep but it's a bit exhausting. And the dishes! I washed dishes three times tonight.

Tonight I cooked in my Instant Pot again. I made the Skinnytaste Chicken Cacciatore, but doubled it. I wasn't sure if I should use 1/2 a can of diced tomatoes for one recipe or if it was saying to use the whole can. Just in case I added another cans worth of pasta sauce since that's all I had that was similar. There was a ton of liquid when I was done so it would have been ok with just the one can.

The meat was fantastic and just fell off the bones. I had it over a bit of rice. After I took this picture I took the bones out and it was all shredded pretty and added a bit more of the sauce. Yum!

ok my little quiche cups are done. I need to put them away so I can go to bed. I'm still trying to recover from sleeping in my car on Sunday night. Story to come soon!

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Happy New Year!

I worked all day on New Years Eve. The other agency at work got sent home on Furlough so we are the last agency standing.


After work I went home and took a nap haha. Then made some little salami cream cheese pepper roll ups and got my self ready to go.

I worked the "pull tabs" table along with Sheryl to the right of me in the pic. Scott, my friend Cassi and Jess sat with us too.

I won one of the big prizes on the pull tabs, $25 woohoo lol. Not too shabby for a .25 card!

Jess spent most of the time with her light up hoop. She is getting really good at it and now has an 80 year old stalker who kept video'ing her the whole time haha.

The lip sync contest was funny! Dinner was good with a ton of (potluck) food. I ended up working the cake booth too when that was going.  We stayed all night and closed down the bar at 1 I think! 

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Insta Ready

I got an Instant Pot from my mom for Christmas. Mostly because she made me go shopping with her for my present and I couldn't think of anything else to get lol. My mom likes us to have something to open so she doesn't like gift cards and promises to go on a road trip. My buddies have Instant Pots so I was like heyyy I know what you can get me.

So here we are. Jessica kept telling me I was going to blow up so I was a bit nervous to use it for the first time. I joined a bunch of Facebook groups and read the whole instruction booklet (that's a first for me..). I did the water test and we didn't blow up! 

I had been craving this flu fighter soup and had most of the ingredients so I decided I'd start with that. The recipe is not made for InstaPot but I just modified it a bit and away we went.

Honestly though, it took the same amount of time it would have taken on the stove. I'm not completely sold yet lol. I did make the noodles separately on the stove since one recipe I was looking at said to do it that way for their soup. I added them in when it was done. 

My friend said I could have added them on the "saute" mode after but I think that would have done the same thing since it was already boiling hot.

I should probably go to the grocery store today but I don't really want to. I work tomorrow and then we have the party. I want to get my food stuff for my menu I made for the rest of the week. Time to get back to cooking every day and stop eating out so much. 

I have my whole grocery list made so that part is done. I'm going to add in the calorie counts on my spread sheet after I make them. I wish I had saved all my meals with calories from when I was hardcore lol. I'm going to save my weeks menus so I can just tweek them a bit and rotate them I think. That's the plan Stan!Pin It

Floating

This time of  year is so weird it's like we are just floating around waiting for January 1st to kick in.

I worked on Thursday and Friday. Friday was great since Anxiety Girl is off on Fridays. If you've never sat next to someone who leaks anxiety out of their pores you are lucky. I think she needs to lay off the coffee and drink some calming tea.

I spent all day Thursday and Friday going through some files and shredding stuff. I shredded 4 black trash bags of papers on Friday. I thought I was getting sick afterwards but I think it was just all the fibers in my nose.

We had a teleconference and they told us they have enough money to pay for us to work the next 2 pay periods which would bring us to January 18th.  Hopefully they will pass a budget before then.

A local police officer was killed on Christmas and they went on a man hunt for the "illegal" who killed him. They didn't release his name for 3 days because they weren't sure exactly what it was but they knew he was an illegal. Doesn't that sound fishy? The big Cheeto even had to tweet about it. I'm hoping the guy that they caught really is the one that did the deed and not some poor Mexican who they are using for their political agenda. Not that I don't feel bad for the police officer and his family, I do, but I've listened to a lot of crime podcasts where they arrest people quickly to "close the case" and they turn out to not be the person who actually committed the crime.

Anyhow, Friday night we had a meeting for the New Years Eve party that is quickly approaching. Apparently it's "40's" themed. Who just has 40's stuff hanging around? Not me lol. I'll be wearing a dress I bought at one of my events I attended before I knew the theme. I'm not going out and buying a bunch of stuff I'm never going to wear again.

Yesterday was "put up the tables day" for the party. They like to drag out the party stuff over several days. Today they are doing lip sync practice but I'm doing doing that lol. Here's me goofing off lol. These hats are funny.

I suggested they add a few more tables this time since people always "reserve" tables and then everyone else gets there and there is no place to sit. Not like you can reserve a table for 2-4 people when it sits 10. In my opinion I don't think they should be reserved at all unless everyone gets a chance to reserve them at the same time but that's just my opinion. Club politics lol

This year it's going to be a "potluck" and not start until 7:30 with the hopes that it goes until midnight. Usually we do an east cost midnight and then retire to the bar. I imagine that will mostly still happen.

So I started off I was going to blog about something else so I think I'll put that in another post since this one is long enough now haha. 

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We Survived

We survived Christmas!

Here's a few pictures from my brother's house.

All the presents from all of us

Adrian being an "elf" handing out presents

We open presents youngest to oldest. This is starting to take a really long time since our family is big lol.

Vincent the younger of the twins (we had to skip baby Joey since he was sleeping)

Emma

Ava

Adrian

Trevor

Tony was next but I didn't get a good picture.

Melissa and her boyfriend

Jessica and her boyfriend

Then all the other adults, who I didn't take pictures of and then back to baby Joey lol

After dinner the kids played for awhile then my brother Louie's kids went home for a bit (they live a couple blocks over). We hung out, played, made snacks, ate snacks and made dinner.  I had made 2 lasagnas the day before so I just had to put them in the oven. 

Baby Joey in his toy my mom bought

Gotta get pictures with them before they forget about me and just want my kids to play with lol

Dinner time!

The boy on the left is Adrian's cousin from the other side of the family

Scott went and got his mom and sister for dinner. Look at his mom's mean mugging!! I think she didn't like us taking pictures at dinner haha. Scott said when he was a kid they weren't even allowed to talk during dinner. Can you imagine? The one time a day everyone is together and you can't even talk. 

God this will be a great before picture if I actually manage to lose weight this year.

Mom and Dad

Only got these guys at the other table since something was going on with the others.

After dinner I helped clean up a bit until my mother in law was really itching to go home. Scott wanted me to go with them so I did. 5 minutes after we were in the house this is him. It's ok honey I'll put the food away...

There is still crap all over everywhere where Christmas exploded. I spent my extra day off doing laundry and cleaning up my room a bit. I'm trying to get things straighten up so I can get my sewing stuff back in there instead of the kitchen table. (Originally I did that because it was too hot in my room). I'm itching to do some sewing. 

Today I went to work. We had a teleconference with someone from the state office who said we will get paid Saturday, then we can work for another pay period or two before they run out of money. We may not get those paychecks on the regular paydays. Awesome sauce. A couple of the other departments at work are already furloughed. The other larger one will be out starting Monday. Not sure how much work we'll actually have to do even though we are there since everything is half working with the new farm bill coming out. Today I spent all day working on cleaning out some old files. That should take me another day or two.

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