I am a late bloomer to Starbucks

OK so Starbucks is on every corner and in every hidden location on earth! I can't go to the local Kroger Grocery Store with out seeing a Starbucks inside waiting for me to swing by and order something. I guess I never was big on Starbucks, when I had other cafes to shop from. Mainly their competitor Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf! I like them more than Starbucks. Now that I live here away from the local Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Starbucks is more readily available. I slowly turned to Starbucks, back when I was doing temp work at the Disney Studio back home. There is a Starbucks in the court yard which included sandwiches there, for lunch. This Starbucks location has the best turkey sandwiches with pesto sauce. But the sandwiches were only at select locations. Not all Starbucks are the same, some are just coffee, and sweet Danishes, and others are more elaborate adding on yogurts, sandwiches, and fruit cups. After loosing the sandwich connection to Starbucks I lost a need to go there.

Now I am here in Ohio, with no Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf near by. I have Panera Bread for their Caramel Lattes or Starbucks all around to get coffee. I thought I would grab a Tall, White Chocolate, Mocha, Frapucino while I was at my local Kroger. The gal there asks me the magic marketing phrase, "what else would you like to get?" I then think about a sweet treat in the display case. I choose the Chocolate-chip Toffee Bar. My new favorite Starbucks item, YUMMMY in my tummy! The Chocolate Toffee Bar is similar to a giant chocolate chip cookie, but with Toffee chunks added in and it is shaped like a bar, instead of a cookie shape. I took a photo of this Starbucks delight, for you to drool over.

This Chocolate chip toffee bar is so rich and definitely not a healthy choice for my mid-day snack, this is more of a pig out and enjoy Starbucks moment for a mid day snack. Once again-Yummy in my tummy!

Please leave a comment on what your favorite Starbucks item is; maybe I will try it out. I am giving Starbucks a double shot. No pun intended really, I mean as in trying it once more to win me over. I liked Starbucks when there were sandwiches to order from and now I like the Chocolate chip toffee bar mid-day snack idea.

I guess Congratulations are in order?

I have a long lost friend I have lost touch with her after she has treated me with little respect, long story, I dislike her. So years later I am contacted through www.classmates.com she signs up and leaves an announcement of her giving birth to her second child. Nice I didn't even know of her first child we lost touch in that amount of time. So ok she now has two children, congrats to her. But then I read on to find that her first child was born just last year Jan 2005, and the second one this year on February 2006! I do the math and it means she must have become pregnant with her second child just 4 1/2 months after the first born, and I read that she is single. Wow, way to go old pal, a single mom of two babies, what are you going to do, my manners say congratulations with a smile, and my conscience is saying f*cked up as usual, sorry to hear that. She bothers me so much. After not hearing from her in so long, it has been nice with out any drama and attention drawn to her. Now, she has me all annoyed again!

I am sorry if this blog post is so rudely typed out, I am ranting my dislike for this old friend of mine. She bugs me so. I do hope she is OK raising the two little ones; just don't bother me with it. Our friendship is over and has been over for sometime!

May our friendship rest in peace and her new motherhood be kind and natural to bring up two children as a single parent, it may be hard but it is all in her own doing.

Pet Cemetery

About 10 + years ago my family had a garage sale and at the end of the garage sale my little brother and I split up the earnings, which was a lot of money for us. Later we went to Albertsons to go grocery shopping with dad, out in front of the store was adopt-a-pet day. There were cats to adopt and my brother and I saw this one calico cat we both liked so much, and dad said we could adopt the kitty if we paid for it with the garage sale money. We talked it over and both put our money together to adopt the kitty. My brother was about 9 and I was 15 years old when we did this. When we got home we showed my mom the new kitty and had to name her and Robert came up with an insanely long name for it, which then became shortened to Taby. Its full name was (by sounding it out) Tabi-theana-mahasa-pina-pedalon! Taby was a cute kitty which my dad grew to liking the most, it would sleep by his feet at night and sit in his lap to be petted. Taby would chase the blue jays in the trees by our house, and was so fun to watch.

I was just informed through email by my dad that Taby is "sleeping" in the front yard under a rock, up by our other old cat, Puna, who died years ago. So now my parents don't have any pets left. I was so sad to read that email. I will miss my Taby cat, may she be happy in kitty heaven, with all the other cats we have lost over the years. I have gone through allot of pets now that I look back on it.

My family has had over the last 20+ years:
2 ducks (Daffy and Donald)
4 Cats (Ophelia, Puna, Lucy, Taby)
3 birds (parakeets yellow, blue, and white forget names)
Tad poles that turned into frogs, and then let them go
4 different snakes one ate mice, others gold fish (speedy,?,?,?)
2 cats that were my grandmas (Daisy and Mickey)
1 cat with Andrew (Rainy)
2 fighter fish (Cloey, Mr. Fish)
Some Gold fish here and there over the years
20 pets all together, wild! Each one unique, all fun pets to have.

Tomato Halves Recipe

I am posting this recipe for a fellow blogger, ( http://houseofbabes.blogspot.com/ ), who tried making Stuffed tomatos from a recipe found in an old 1970s cook book she had. Her recipe includes mini hotdogs stuffed in there (YUK!) and so I have a recipe that is similar and tastes good. I call it Tomato Halves, something my dad makes that I have always liked.
The photo of this includes the rest of the dinner I had made that night, of Salmon, and Potato pancakes along with the tomato half.

Tomato Halves:

Two large, round, tomatos (serving size 4) cut in half
Place on cookie sheet close together to not roll around,
*a muffin tin works well holding each tomato half in place*
drizzle some olive oil over the cut tomatoes
sprinkle garlic salt
top with bread crumbs
and shredded cheese (optional)

bake in oven 375 until golden brown on top or cheese melts, 3-5 minutes.
You can peak through the window of the oven door to keep an eye on them.

There you have it! A lovely side dish to make with dinner.

Night and Day Super Bowls

I grew up on the west coast, so in California the super bowl always started around 3 o'clock, & here in Ohio it started at 6pm! So after so many years of super bowl in the after noon it was strange being a night event this year for the first time. Back home super bowl became an all day event; starting with a Bar B.Q. in the backyard, hot dogs or hamburgers, head inside about 2:30 with it starting at 3pm, huttle around the TV, bets are made, and everyone is cheering on thier teams. The game would end around 6:30 or 7pm and then it is dinner time. Depending on the victory, if the rooting team wins we would all hang out for dinner also and celebrate. People hang out all day celebrating Super Bowl in CA.

Steelers vs. Seahalks Super Bowl 40 ~ 2006!

Hines Ward ~ Most Valuable Player for the Steelers

This year, we are in Ohio, a 3 hour difference from CA. and the game doesn't start until 6pm! So we went to church this morning, we were invited with a group of people to meet at Katie's house for Super Bowl at 5:30 that night. I felt like I had a whole day ahead of me to still do other things before the game and not have to be there untill 5:30. Rock on! We got there at 5:30, and the game started at 6pm and went on till 10pm! We went home about 8:45 and watched the rest here at home, Andrew has work in the morning.

With the Super Bowl being an evening event, and in OH, it was a totally different experience. No one was hanging out outside, because of the snow and cold. We were all inside. Instead of a Bar BQ we all pitched in $5 per couple for pizzas, along with the usual snacky foods of chips, dip, veggi platter, and some home-made cookies (yum). Bets were still made before the game, and the majority of the group were rooting for the Seahalks. Three of us rooted for the Steelers! Who won? THE STEELERS! GO TEAM! 21 to 10 score.

The Half time show had the Rolling Stones play three songs. At first I thought "Cool the Rolling Stones are playing the half time show!" As I was watching them play I just saw a group of old men on a stage. WoW how they have aged!? The drummer with bolding, grey, hair, and Mick Jagger was jumping around on stage sort of out of breath, and looked too skinny, dancing around like he was still in his 20's on stage. The songs are still good though. Here is a recent photo of them, provided by the Rolling Stones web site. They are in there 60s or older, still rockin away on stage.

Recap:
Ohio celebrates an evening game, and California celbrates an all day - afternoon game, OH is indoors with it snowing outside, and in CA the party starts outside with the bar-BQ, in Ohio we go home about 10:30 at night, CA. head home for dinner at 6:30 after the game is over. Total opposites on the Super Bowl event. CA. the game is ending around 6:30, Ohio the game is just starting about 6 O'clock. Time zone differs on a live event, it is night and day with the different states. Oh...and the Rolling Stones are OLD!