Ferris and Simone

So, Neal and I just got home from participating in a charity kickball tournament. My company sponsors the tournament and we organize a team. Teams are made up of local businesses. We won the whole dang thing last year, which was pretty cool. Somehow, an all-star kickball team which participates in local leagues was invited to the tourney, and they kicked everybody’s butts, so we didn’t win this year. It was kind of lame they were in an amateur kickball tourney, but whatever.

Anyway, here are a couple of things my body is experiencing right now:

1. I have a knot on my right ankle that is red and getting bigger. The kickballs they used were HUGE and I pretty much kicked it with my ankle every time.

2. I have a semi-bloody brush burn on my wrist. Origin is unknown.

3. My arms are very tired. I had trouble washing my hair in the shower a minute ago and I’m concerned about my ability to do laundry later tonight. This is caused by pumping my arms while running my ass off and doing the ol’ wheel-arm move to wave people to run.

4. My legs have pretty much peaced out for the day. I stumbled walking down the stairs and am not sure I’m going to be able to get up to walk to the kitchen to get dinner. I might need Neal to feed me where I sit.

5. My head is pounding from squinting since I forgot to bring my sunglasses.

So yeah, I’m not in good shape at the moment. I didn’t do horrible today. I made a lot of mistakes, but I also made some pretty good plays.

Neal, as always, was a hit. Here are three compliments he was given today:

1.” Neal IS our ringer!”

2. “Your husband is a great athlete. Did he play soccer?”

3. “He is chiseled.” (This was my personal favorite)

HA!

OK, so I’m going to sign off now. My plan is to pretty much be a vegetable tonight. I just want to sleep the next two days, since my body is really going to let me have it tomorrow. Ugh.

OK, so I totally got yelled at by my friends Jodie and Jess, haha, because I’m lame and haven’t posted in two weeks.

I’m sorry!

First of all, my blog kind of got hacked into and Neal had to work some magic to fix it. And then I just decided to take a hiatus. But I’m back! And better than ever, baby!

I have fabulous pictures from an AMAZING night to show you. I feel bad I haven’t shown you these earlier. Here’s the deal – Neal and I LOVE the show “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” It’s a comedy that’s on FX Thursday nights. I kind of call it the anti-”Friends” (you know that show). Basically it’s a group of friends that own a bar. They are all self-absorbed and backstab each other and other people. They never get ahead and every episode ends with them at the same point in their lives, if not worst. Sound depressing? It’s not, it’s AWESOME and HILARIOUS. Neal and I love it.

So, to promote the new season, the cast traveled to a couple cities and performed last season’s finale LIVE on stage. The creator is from Philadelphia and the night of the premier, they were performing in Philly. The show sold out in 30 seconds and Neal was not able to get tickets. I guess because of popular demand, they added a second show in Philly that same night at 11 p.m. SOMEHOW, even though the tickets sold out again in seconds, Neal was able to get tickets. He rules!

So we headed to the Tower Theater in Upper Darby two weeks ago on a Thursday to attend the show, called “The Nightman Cometh.” Even though we had tickets, we still stood in line. There is a song that everyone knows from the show, called “Dayman” that a character wrote and performed on the show. While standing in line, random performances of “Dayman” kept breaking out. It was pretty funny.

Charlie is my favorite. I love his character and I love him.

Yes, that’s Danny Devito. The name on the poster is his character’s name.

Neal and I bought special shirts for the shower. I’m not going to bother to explain them, because if you aren’t a fan of the show, it’s not going to make sense, haha.

Greenman what the character Charlie becomes when he dresses in an all body, green lycra costume. Big fan favorite. There were several Greenmen at the show.

We got into the theater a little after 10:30. There was a makeshift “Paddy’s Pub” set up, which is the name of the bar the gang owns in the show.

We saw one of our college friends there, and of course, he was a Greenman, hahaha.

And then the show started. The theater was PACKED. First we watched an episode from this coming season. It was so cool to watch an episode with hundreds of other “Sunny” fans, because everyone laughed at the right times. Like, we all just GOT IT. So cool.

And then the cast cast came out and performed last season’s finale episode. It was unreal to see the cast live, and it was extra cool to watch in the show’s hometown. The creator is from Philly and the show is shot in Philly.

So anyway, it was honestly the coolest thing. It was a long night. We didn’t get home until 3 a.m. But it was SOOOO worth it. Neal’s awesome for being able to get tickets, and I’ll truly never forget the experience.

“Sunny” rules!!!

So, I’ve been pretty lax on cooking lately. And when I have cooked, it’s been the staples – turkey burgers, meatloaf, baked chicken, etc.

Well, lately, I’ve been utilizing the awesomeness that is frozen shrimp. Our grocery store has had frozen shrimp on sale recently, so we like to buy the 2-pound bags of large shrimp. I get two meals out of that and it’s a good lean meat.

I also have finally broken in my new Pampered Chef cookbook. Some of the recipes aren’t that appealing to me, or they are too calorie-heavy, but there are still some really good ones in there.

The first one, which I made last week, was grilled shrimp with lemon orzo. I had orzo pasta in my pantry for a while and just didn’t see a recipe I liked. So I decided to make this recipe. It was pretty easy and I thought it all tasted really good.

Yum! Next time, I’ll go easier on the lemon juice, as this was pretty lemon-y. But still very good. The best part? It was a one-pot meal. I love that!

Yesterday (Saturday) was a very, very rainy day. If Neal and I don’t have any plans on a Saturday night, then we like to go to the grocery store late at night (like between 10 and midnight; we’re losers). It’s not crowded and we can take our time. So I had to make dinner with whatever I had in the house. I once again perused my Pampered Chef cookbook and found a recipe for parmesan crusted shrimp with spaghetti. I had a block of parmesan cheese in the frig, plus frozen shrimp, pasta and pasta sauce. I sent Neal and out in the rain to grab me some parsley from our herb garden and I was good to go to make this!

I really loved this dinner. I had to grate the parmesan cheese, then cook it in a thin layer in a skillet until it was lacy and golden brown. Then, once it was cool, I broke it up into crumbs. Then I put these crumbs over the shrimp and baked it. It was so good! I will definitely make this again, because it was relatively easy, used few ingredients and was quick.

Doesn’t that look good? It was seriously awesome.

I decided I’ll have to start cooking with shrimp more often!

What a weird weekend this was, right? It poured buckets all day Saturday, and then today (Sunday) is beautiful! Oh well, good football weather. First Eagles game of the season, so let’s go Birds!

So, OK, how is it September already? Seriously. I do not understand where my life is going.

It’s going to be Christmas before I know it.

Anyway, I know I’ve been MIA. I’m trying to enjoy the last of the warm weather (which seems to be steadily disapearing starting this week).

We had our parents and some friends over Sundy for a little Labor Day picnic. I took a bunch of pictures, but screw all my friends. The best pictures are of the babeh!

Yes, we had a babeh visit us and it was pretty cool.

This cutey is the love child of our friends Katie and Frankie. I posted pics a while back of Katie and I at her baby shower.

I zoomed in really close to get his cute little eyelashes.

And this was about the time he squeezed his eyes and made grunting taking-a-dump face, haha.

And here are their other, furry babies, Ollie and Sydney.

Anyway, I took more pictures, but I’m sure you’re really only interested in the baby, right? HAHA.

“He’ll keep calling me. He’ll keep calling me. All right. I’ll go, I’ll go I’ll go I’ll go I’ll go I’ll…. go.”

HAHA, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” was on TV last night. I’ve said this before, but it’s my favorite movie, hence our cats’ names. I love the character “Ferris Bueller.” Don’t we all wish we could be as carefree as him? I have a problem with not living in the moment. I’m always looking at what’s next, never really just paying attention to the present. Ferris, though? He’s all about the present, consequences be damned. I love that guy.

They’ve been playing all my favorite 80s movies on TV, because of the death of director John Hughes. This guy was a genius. I love his movies.

Anyway, it made me realize I really haven’t posted pics of the cats lately. What’s that about? Who knows. I don’t have any pictures of Ferris. Because he’s all black, it’s hard to get good shots of him. Simone’s a great model.

They still haven’t given up on Lobster Claw yet. They love this thing. Jodie, can you send me another one? HAHA!

And then Simone decided to pick up the weights. You know, do a little toning.

I love that cat.

OK, I’ll make it my mission to get some good shots of Ferris. I promise!