Paws To Enjoy

Meet Asher, our new ragdoll kitten!

a little blurry...

The weekend before Chad and I left for Florida, we drove just outside of Harrisburg to visit a little cutie we had our eyes on.  Chad and I have talked about getting a ragdoll kitten since before we were married.  In fact, if you were at the wedding, you may remember these cool cootie catchers we made! Instead of telling fortunes, our Cooties Catchers had trivia about us including this this little tidbit:

When we meet Asher for the first time, we nearly died of cuteness overload.  This was just a tentative visit to see him in person and see what his personality was like… However, we decided very quickly that he was going to be ours.  We really wanted to take him with us right then, but since we were leaving for Florida in only three days, we were worried that he would be confused and scared to move and then be left alone.  So we hesitantly left him there.  However, we made plans to come pick him up as soon as we were home from our vacation.  In fact, we drove straight to get him from the airport after we landed in Baltimore.

Asher loves to be on laps

The first week was all exploration and getting used to us.  He was a little shy at first, but warmed up to us really quickly!  Ragdoll cats are a lot like dogs.  The crave attention.  They want to be in the same room as you all the time.  They are extremely playful with lots of energy, but will also simply go limp as soon as you pick them up, falling asleep in seconds.  Even as I type this Asher is laying on my desk, batting at my hand.

Every day he got a little braver and started exploring new areas, taking on one room each day until he’d been everywhere expect the basement.  He was terrified of the stairs.  I have no idea why, except I’m wondering if the breeder we got him from simply didn’t have any and he just didn’t know what they were.  We tried to get him to go down on his own for almost two weeks, and he just wouldn’t do it.  We carried him down there a few times, and he really liked to explore that area, but even when we held him on the steps he was very afraid – he would cling to us, claws digging in, like he thought we were about to throw him the whole way down.  So I came up with this brilliant idea to put his food on the steps.  He loves his food.  We feed him twice a day (we wanted to just fill his bowl and let him eat when he is hungry, but he was having some really nasty messes in the litter box because he wasn’t moderating his intake correctly – so we had to put him on a “diet”, poor thing).  Each time we fed him, we moved his food a little farther down the steps until it was at the bottom, and that solved our problem in 2 days!  Now the steps are awesome.  They are just another obstacle course for him.

He loves obstacle courses.  He always takes his toys under the dining room table or our bar stools, and kicks it around under there so that he has to jump through and around the legs of the chairs to get it again.  As can be witnessed here:

So anyway, we are loving Asher!  He’s a great little kitty, and I’m sure we will have many more stories to tell about him in the future! Stay tuned!!!

I'll leave you with a bunch of cute pictures of Asher sleeping on my desk. Enjoy!

First Flight: Florida Vacation!!

It’s a new year! And we’re already almost through February!  And sadly this is my first post since we switched to 2012.  I can’t believe how fast time flies! 

Speaking of flying… I totally went on my first plane ride a few weeks ago!  Chad and I left for Florida on February 7^th (Happy Birthday, Momma Frey!) and it was a quick 2 hour, 20 minute flight to Orlando.  

On the Plane!!

I was probably much more nervous about this than the situation warranted.  I’m a semi-expert on planes now.  I read pretty much every Wikipedia article I could find in anticipation of leaving and watched a ton of youtube videos people took of taking off and landing (which they were definitely NOT allowed to be doing).  I was pretty convinced something awful was going to happen.  My logic for this is that it feels like that every time I’ve tried something new, something goes wrong. (The first time I did the haunted house ride on a band trip, the machine broke down and they had to come lead us out through the emergency exits.  The first time I rode a roller coaster it detected something was off and we sat at the top of Apollo’s Chariot, 170 ft in the air, for an hour… Although, I will say that my first ride on Apollo’s Chariot was not as bad as Fabio’s) But seriously, I’ve never made myself that nauseous before strictly out of nervousness.  I really thought I was going to vomit right there on the jet bridge! 

Waiting at BWI

I was actually pretty nervous, too, about going through security, simply because I didn’t know what to expect.  I had this minor fear that something would somehow materialize in my bag that I wasn’t allowed to have, even though I went through my purse like 40 times before we left for the airport.  But anyway, that all turned out to be a breeze!  It didn’t take very long at all!  We flew Southwest (which is a really cool airline – the stewards are funny!) and they don’t have assigned seating, so I was nervous about getting a seat with Chad.  It was a full flight so there was really no room to spare.  We had a lower number “B” boarding pass so that let us board fairly quickly, but we still had to go almost the whole way to the back of the plane to get a seat together (which Chad said was a good thing because, “Have you ever seen a plane back into a mountain?”). 

It felt like it took forever to actually get in the seat and buckle myself in, but after the plane started moving, I felt much better.  It was just a crazy experience to be that high in the air, above the clouds.  Terrifyingly beautiful.  

I didn’t mind it much when we were moving steadily.  I didn’t like the turbulence.  It probably only lasted a total of 15 minutes but it felt pretty bad.  Chad said it was some of the stronger turbulence he’d felt before.  And I didn’t like it when the plane had to bank and change direction.  It made me feel funny in my head to see the clouds and the ground at such weird angles.  But, overall I didn’t hate it.  I’d definitely do it again, although I’m not sure how I’d do on a trip longer than 2 and a half hours… I was really ready to be done after that. Haha.

A family friend of Chad’s was sweet enough to pick us up at the airport and then let us borrow her car for the rest of the time we were down there so we didn’t have to get a rental car.  We stayed at The Beach Club Resort which is directly beside Epcot (probably half a mile walk), which was great because that was one of the places we were planning on going while we were down there.  Tuesday night, after we were settled in the hotel, we ate at Olive Garden and it was delicious! :)

Wednesday, we went to the Builder’s Show, which was the main reason we took the trip.  Chad’s business sells Eldorado Stone which is a large stone veneer company that usually has a booth at this show each year.  This year they provided the stone for the concept houses that were available to tour, which is how we spent most of our day there.  Wednesday night we had dinner at the Melting Pot, because I had always wanted to go there.  I love Chocolate fondue.  Love it.  So now I will do a quick (I promise) mini-review of the Melting Pot:

Atmosphere: Pleasant and interesting.  Our table was weirdly “L”-shaped and the burner was way up in the farthest corner from the seats which made it hard for Little-Short-Arms here to reach the food without dripping and dropping it everywhere before it got back to my plate.

Service: Very good.  The waiter was really helpful.  Since we had never been there before and it is such a different experience we needed a lot of help figuring everything out.

Price: $$$$ (that means expensive).  Their popular 4-course meal is $80 for two people.  Without drinks, or any of the optional specials, or tip.

Food: This is the big one.  The 1st course was our choice of cheese fondue.  We got the Spinach Artichoke and it was really good.  It comes with some veggies, bread cubes, tortilla style chips, and apple pieces to dip in it.  Although, honestly, it was nothing super special.  The waiter makes it right in front of you, and I really probably could have made it myself at home.  And it would have probably been more suited to my tastes, since it had a little kick to it and I am not one for kicks.  The 2nd course was a very good House Salad with a yummy dressing! :) The 3^rd course was about 4 to 5 bite-size pieces of each (and I stole this right off the menu – definitely don’t have that good of a memory) “Sesame-Crusted Sushi-Grade Ahi Tuna, Tender Shrimp, Seasoned Choice Angus Sirloin, Herb-Crusted Chicken Breast and Teriyaki-Marinated Sirloin”.  You then choose the “cooking style” you want which is basically a type of broth.  We did Court Boullion which was seasoned vegetable broth.  (Again it had a definite kick to it).  So anyway, they bring you out the meat raw and you have to cook it in the broth… I didn’t know that’s how it worked.  We weren’t huge fans of that method.  It feels like you spend a ton of money and then you have to make your own meal.  The food was definitely good, but it feels like a lot of work.  Didn’t think that part was really worth the money.  Anyway then the 4^th course was dessert, which was by far the best thing we had.  We chose the Cookies ‘n Cream Marshmallow Dream which was “Dark chocolate topped with marshmallow cream, flambéed, swirled together and garnished with crushed Oreo® cookies”.  YUM! They bring you out little Rice Krispies Treats, brownies, cheesecake, strawberries, bananas, pound cake, and marshmallows to dip in it.  It’s very good.   The nice thing about this is that so long as you don’t run out of chocolate fondue before your dippers are all, they will bring you out more of whatever dippers you want.  It is amazing.

So my overall recommendation of the Melting Pot is to try it at least once for the experience and then after that just go for dessert.  The chocolate fondues are $16 for 2 people - slightly expensive, but not too bad if you saved some money and had dinner at home!  It’s a very tasty treat!  [UPDATE (03.22.12): Chad and I just went to Harrisburg for the day a few weeks ago and had dessert at a Melting Pot there.  We got the same chocolate fondue and it was only $12.50, so price varies by location!!]

Okay, back to the rest of the vacation.  On Thursday, we went to Universal’s Islands of Adventure, which was probably the thing I wanted to do the most while we were there because I’d never been there before, and let’s face it… Harry Potter.  

It was amazing.  The Wizarding World of Harry Potter was packed with people, though.  Everyone in the park that day seemed to want to go to the same place.  

But I got to try a butter beer and go to to all the wizarding shops! 

We went all around the rest of the park, too, and went through "Jurassic Park" and saw a Sin Bad show, and rode all the roller coasters a few times!  It was very fun!  Now we are craving to go to Hershey Park or Busch Gardens (we have our 1 year anniversary coming up in April… Hehehe…) Thursday night we had dinner with a few people from Eldorado Stone at a Restaurant called Capriccio Grill which was at The Peabody.   I tried Seafood Pizza and Chad got a steak!  It was pretty yummy!

We went to Epcot on Friday and that was fun, too! Definitely not as many rides to do there, but we really enjoyed walking around the “World Showcase” and going in all the shops.  We had lunch in China. Haha!  And then we darted in some shops while it rained for 20 mins or so, and when it stopped, we walked back to the Resort to get some dessert.  There is an ice cream and soda shop there called Beaches and Cream, and it was delicious!

They also have a huge dessert called the Kitchen Sink which really does come out in a sink and it is basically every flavor of ice cream they have, covered in every topping they have and a whole can of whipped cream.  It looked amazing!  They brought out 3 of them in the half hour that we were there!  After that we went back to Epcot and went through the rest of the park.  We had a very small snackish sort of dinner since we were so full from our ice cream still, and then we went back to our room to get our showers for the night and just relax.  (our feet were killing us!! We did so so much walking every day!  We are out of shape!!) And then we made our way back to Epcot to watch the fireworks show which was pretty cool!

Our last full day was Saturday, and we just spent this day exploring.  We went to The Florida Mall and The Mall at Millenia, Disney’s Boardwalk, and Downtown Disney.  I wanted a candy apple, so I got that and shared it with Chad and it popped off one side of his permanent retainer on his lower teeth, so that sucked, but at least it happened on the last day.    

We also saw Chronicle, which was a really great movie.  We both liked it a lot!  Then we met the friend who let us borrow her car and her husband at Wolfgang Puck for dinner.  It was packed in that restaurant!! The food was pretty good though.  I got 4-cheese macaroni.  Then we went back to the resort and let them have their car back :).

Sunday, we woke up pretty early and got all our stuff together.  We took a short walk around the resort again and witnessed this:

Yum. Ketchup.

 

But we didn’t stay out long because it was actually really cold that morning.  It had been really nice the rest of the week, and in fact, I had a bit of a sunburn. Haha! We took a taxi to the airport and had lunch after we got through security.  I was much less nervous about flying this time.  The flight was pretty much on schedule and there was less turbulence overall on the way home.  I distracted myself by reading almost the whole time.  The landing was really bumpy because it was so windy in Baltimore.  But I just kept reading until we were firmly on the ground, cozied up next Chad and I was fine! :)

So that is our vacation in a nutshell!  We made a little pit stop on the way home (which wasn’t really “on the way” home… it was in fact a little out of the way… haha) to Harrisburg to pick up my “reward” for being such a good flier.  :) more to come on that in my next blog.  This one is already too huge!  (Hint: it has whiskers.)

My First Ever Layer Cake

So I successfully made a chocolate layer cake a few days ago! I did this purely out of stress.  I like to bake when I’m stressed.  So I spent four hours baking and making my kitchen look horrendous and my cake look pretty.  I posted a picture of it already on facebook, so most of you have probably seen it, but here’s the final product:

I brought this along to our weekly family gathering for dessert.  And of course I had to warn everyone that it was my first time making a layer cake and it didn’t turn out quite how I expected, so I wasn’t sure how good it would taste.  Well, of course we all forgot about the cake when we sat down to a table so full with my mom’s delicious dinner that we literally couldn’t even fit all of it on there along with our dinner plates.  She is the most amazing cook.  So all of us were very full when it came time for dessert.  But everyone thought they might have room for a little sliver of my cake.  As we were finishing up our last bites of ham and roast and mashed potatoes and salad and biscuits and fruit salad (and I’m sure there were other things, too, that I’m forgetting), Jessie asked me, “so what’s in this cake??”

“Okay,” I said resolutely, “Let me tell you the story.”  At this point you could see everyone around the table brace themselves in resignation.  They all know me well enough to know how my stories often happen to be epic retellings that never seem to end and tend to spiral off into completely different topics in a never-ending sort of way.  Well, this is what I had to say about baking my cake and why I was pretty sure it hadn’t turned out exactly like it was supposed to.

I’d searched allrecipes for the best chocolate cake and came up with this Too Much Chocolate Cake.  That looked really good to me.  But I didn’t have the bundt pan it called for so I decided to make it into two 9 inch pans and do a layer cake instead.  And it called for one 18.25 ounce package of Devil’s Food Cake mix, but I didn’t have that.  I did have some sort or another of a triple chocolate cake mix, so I used that instead.  However, it was only 14.something ounces so I decided to cut back on all the other ingredients just a bit as well.  Instead of one cup of sour cream and vegetable oil I did just slightly more than ¾ cup.  And I didn’t really measure the warm water.  It called for half a cup, but I probably put in about half that amount cause it seemed like it would be too runny otherwise.  Well then it called for a package of instant chocolate pudding.  But I didn’t have chocolate pudding.  So I put in a package of instant vanilla pudding instead and added a huge heaping tablespoon of cocoa power.  And then it called for two cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips.  But I didn’t have two cups.  I had about ¼ cup, so I put that in and then I just dumped in the rest of a bag of dark chocolate chips that I had laying around instead (they’re practically the same thing right??).  And then it called for four eggs, but I didn’t have four eggs (yeah, yeah, I don’t have anything – I haven’t been to the store in a while).  So I put in three eggs instead.  So, my cake batter ready(ish), I filled my cake pans and popped those in the oven.  It called for them to be in there at 350 degrees for 50-55 mins! (what?) that seemed like a really long time to me… But I set the timer for that anyway (after ten or fifteen minutes… I forgot right away… oops.)  But then like 35 minutes (I think) into baking it seemed like they were done - actually getting a little overdone - the edges were starting to shrink away from the pan and get a little hard and my tooth pick came out completely clean, so I pulled those babies out and let them cool.

Anyway, in the mean time, I decided to start my icing.  I’ve been really hungry for cherries lately, but I didn’t want to ice my entire cake in cherry frosting.  So I decided to do that between the layers and then do chocolate on top and around the sides! Yum!!  Well it turns out that it is extremely hard to find a good cherry frosting recipe.  I looked forever!  I didn’t really want a buttercream or creamcheese one because I didn’t feel like that was in keeping with the cake.  So finally I ended up with this recipe.

Well that was all well and great, except I didn’t have frozen cherries or fresh cherries.  What I did have was cherry pie filling.  So I just picked out the cherries in that and scrapped all the gooey stuff off and put them in my food chopper (I don’t have a food processer) and chopped them up until they were nice and pureed.  Oh, and I didn’t have unsalted butter so I just used salted sweetcream butter and omitted the pinch of salt.  Mmmm.  Usually icings for me turn out awful, but this was really good and light and fluffy with just the right amount of cherry flavor.  It was supposed to be "the texture of icecream" but I'm glad it didn't turn out that thick.

Then I choose this Creamy Chocolate Frosting, WHICH I DIDN’T CHANGE AT ALL!! (I know. It’s a miracle!)

And I must say, I didn’t realize how much I’d deviated from the recipes until I was sitting there telling everyone (who were all in tears, by the way, laughing so hard at my interesting choices in substitutions).  No one had much hope after that of it actually tasting any good, but for all those changes, it actually turned out quite yummy!  I think everyone was pretty suprised.  Maybe not the best cake in the history of cakes, but definitely a great first-time success!!

So, here are the recipes (and my changes, too, if you're crazy enough to want them!):

Too Much Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

• One (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix (14 ounce package of whatever chocolate cake you have)
• One (5.9 ounce) package instant chocolate (vanilla) pudding mix (+ a heaping tablespoon of cocoa powder)
• One (slightly more than ¾) cup sour cream
• One (slightly more than ¾) cup vegetable oil
• Four (three) eggs
• ½  (¼) cup warm water
• 2 (¼) cups semisweet chocolate chips (+ some random number of dark chocolate chips)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, mix together the cake and pudding mixes, sour cream, oil, beaten eggs and water. Stir in the chocolate chips and pour batter into a well greased 12 cup bundt pan (2 slightly greased 9-inch cake pans).
3. Bake for 50 to 55 (35-45) minutes, or until top is springy to the touch and a wooden toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool cake thoroughly in pan at least an hour and a half before inverting onto a plate if desired (on cooling rack for however long it takes) and, dust the cake with powdered sugar (make a ridiculous amount of frosting to cover - recipes below).  

Cherry Frosting

Ingredients

• ½ cup frozen whole cherries, thawed (cherry pie filling, gooeyness removed) 
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• Pinch salt
• 3 ½ cup confectioners sugar, (sifted)
• ½ tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

1. Place cherries in the bowl of a food processor (chopper) and process until pureed
2. Use an electric mixer to beat butter and salt until light and fluffy. 
3. Slowly add confectioners sugar and beat until well combined. Add vanilla and cherry puree, mix until just blended. Frosting consistency should be dense and cr eamy, like ice cream. (fluffy).

Creamy Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients

• 2 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar
• 6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 5 tablespoons evaporated milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, sift together the confectioners' sugar and cocoa, and set aside
2. In a large bowl, cream butter until smooth, then gradually beat in sugar mixture alternately with evaporated milk. Blend in vanilla. Beat until light and fluffy. If necessary, adjust consistency with more milk or sugar.

Yay for cake!! :)

A Weekend Getaway

Chad and I had been talking about going on a little get-away for a while now (well, mostly I’d been making vague comments about how I love taking vacations, and how I always had a nice vacation every summer to look forward to, and how everyone’s always updating their facebook statuses about being away on vacations) so Chad came home last Friday and announced that we were going away.  I love that man. :) We decided to head to the Poconos for the rest of the weekend.  On Saturday we went to Bushkill Falls (“the Niagara of Pennsylvania”!!) and walked some of the trails there.  That is a really beautiful place. 

The only downside was that a few of the trails were closed off because someone died while we were there.  We didn’t find that out until we got home, though.  We saw a bunch of emergency personnel while we were there, and Chad did some research after we got back to see if he could find out why.  So, that is really sad.  Definitely a reminder to spend every second we can with the ones we love. 

Almost immediately after we were done and back in the car it started to pour down rain.  And then it rained and rained and rained.  It rained all through a very good dinner at Olive Garden.  And it rained when we crossed the parking lot and went to Borders.  And then it rained when we drove back to the hotel.  And luckily there was an indoor pool for us to take a late-night dip in, because it was pouring down rain then, too.  And then it continued to rain all night long.  It did slow down to a nice drizzle for us to load up our car to leave on Sunday morning.  But then as soon as we were off, it launched itself back into all-out pouring again.  It rained when we stopped at a mall on the way home.  And when we ate lunch at Outback it was still raining.  And then we had to brave the rain at Wegman’s (which, holy crap, is most ginormous grocery store I have ever been in for reals!!) to see if they had any Jones soda (which they did, so we got 5 packs to stock up).  And when we stopped in at Cabela’s it was raining particularly hard.  And then we came out of Cabela’s and it was NOT RAINING!!!  (What!!)  So we were able to make a quick stop at a place called Interiors, which (obviously enough) sells décor for homes, without getting completely drenched for once!!  Then about 45 minutes later we were back home, and probably about 45 minutes after that it starting raining again.  Yep.  And then it rained for another 2 days.  So apparently it was following us. Hahaha!  I’m going to take it as a good sign.  It absolutely poured down rain on our wedding day, after all. :)

We’ve been spending a lot of time with family this week, too, which I love doing.  We had the normal dinners on Tuesday and Wednesday with each of our parents and then Saturday we went out to eat with Chad’s parents and then went back to their house and watched Inception.  And then Sunday Tanya came with us to Church and then Chris and Jessie had a cook-out-ish gathering for the rest of the day!  That was really fun and yummy!  We played a game that Chad and I got while we were away over the weekend called Loaded Questions.  We got it for a pretty good deal at Borders.  That was hilarious.  Very fun!  Also, I got to see their newish dog again, Pyro, and make him do some neat tricks.  He is the most well-behaved dog in the world, and he will do almost anything you tell him! Oh my gosh. I want one. :D

Okay.  Must resist urge to keep typing.  There is work to be done!  More towels to wash.

Blog Post 5 (in which parentheses have taken control)

Well, as you can clearly see, I made good on my First Ever Blog Post promise to neglect you.  What have I been doing all this time, you ask in outrage??  I was sick for 5 days.  Courtesy of my husband, who was also sick, but not quite as bad as me.  (curses!!)  But we’re both better now.  I was also just pretty busy.  Chad and I went shopping at Tyson’s Corner two weekends ago.  I did end up getting the Zoku Duo Quick Pop Maker!! (which was great because immediately after that I got sick and I always love popsicles when I’m sick).  Then last weekend we went to Borders twice (because they are going out of business, I’m sure you’ve heard) and we both found a few things to bring home.  It’s funny because even with their sale prices everything is still cheaper on Amazon.  I read two books (which, oddly enough, were not the ones I got from Borders).  I love to read, but I never have time anymore.  But they were really good books.  I liked them a lot.  (Hey!  Maybe sometime I’ll do a review blog post on one of them?!  There’s a fun idea.)  We went to Bed, Bath, & Beyond, Wal-Mart, Lowes, and Hobby Lobby, like, twice each.  Some other stores, too.  My mom and I got groceries a couple times.  Chad and I had dinner with both sets of parents.  We ate at the Greene Turtle & Rosalie’s and those were both delicious in the extreme.  We went for lots of ice cream (also delicious).  I baked a cake and made chocolate covered pretzels (yes, all delicious, too.  Gosh, is food my whole life?  Writing this all out makes me feel like I need to go weigh myself).  And, as you can probably tell, I’m getting into the mundane things things now that you have no actual interest in hearing about… if you haven’t already given up reading…                    

Hello?              

Wait! Come back!  I’ll be more interesting!! 

I just finished up writing all my wedding thank you notes!  Finally!  Whew…   I’m so late in getting it done.  I feel like a horrible human being.  Really, I am VERY thankful for everything.  And really, I did start writing these notes RIGHT after the wedding.  I have no idea why it’s taking so long to get them sent out.  And I will be so glad when they stop commandeering our coffee table.  So anyway, half of the envelopes are addressed, stamps are bought, and I just have to get the other addresses and I will be good to go!  Except (of course, there’s always something else) I really really want to get a return address stamp with our address on it (obviously, Elana) so that I can just stamp those babies and be done!  I think that would be really cool to have for all letter writing situations!  There are, like, a ton and a half designs over on etsy.com (which I just added to the Websites We Love section – don’t know how I forgot about it til right now??) but I don’t really have a particular affinity for any of the ones on there.  (Is affinity the right word?  I dunno??  My fingers just wrote it.  Don’t ask me.)  So I found a few websites where you can make your own stamp for something like $20.00.  I made up a pretty simple design (or seven), so now I just have to decide if I want to attempt to make my own and possibly have it be crap (and if so, decide which of my seven designs I want to use) (and if not, which one I will settle for on Etsy) (OR if I just want to drop the idea entirely and hand-write it 75 times).  Gosh, why can’t I just make anything simple??  It’s a curse.  I seriously over-think EVERYTHING.  Ask Chad.  (He’s nodding in the background.)  (No, not really, I just made that up.)  (I did warn you that I might do that.)  (He IS actually in the background though.)  (So it’s only a half-lie.)  (I have no idea why I feel the need for all these parentheses.)

Okay, so, looking back on this entry, I’m not entirely sure that I succeeded in my earlier promise to be more interesting.  I’m also not entirely sure that I had an actual point to make here.  That is a dangerous situation for me to be in because I have been known to take a simple conversation and turn it into this spiraling out of control, several topic, no end in sight, attack on the English language.  That is why I’m going to make this the end.  (Why are my conclusions always so awkward??  I have no idea how I passed my speech class.  And I’m doing it again.  Seriously, this is what my blog posts look like before I go back and edit all the randomness out of them.  I’m going to leave this one alone to set an example of the horrors you could be subjected to if I didn’t hold back a little.  You're welcome.  If I ever tried to be a real writer I think my editor would end up strangling me, or breaking my fingers, or at very least, ripping the 9 and 0 off my keyboard.)

(Okay, I lied.  I did go back and edit some of it out.  Yeah, it was that bad.)