I don’t track who comes and goes on this here blog. Because, well, the goal of having this blog was for me to have a place to vent, shout, and write inconsistent topics to keep my small circle of friends’ updated on what is happening with me and my life.

Oh, yeah, who am I kidding? I started it so I did not have to repeat the same dating story over and over and over again. Uh, you know back when I was dating. Because, now it’s just a place to talk about living in not so, since he has not asked yet, blissful matrimony with the boyfriend.

I promise you this is going somewhere.

So, yeah, the stats were really never that important to me. My word press would show them to me, there in my dashboard. I would take a look at the lines and go “uh”.

Until yesterday. When I saw this:

D-Day, November 2nd

Yeah, see the SPIKE UP line?? See it?

And when I clicked on the top of the spike line this BIG number came up:

3,820, as in Three thousand eight hundred and twenty! Hell-O!

Then I had this thought. ok, these multiple thoughts:

Dude, people are READING THE BLOG!

Holy shit!

I need to up my game, I need to stop procrastinating and make sure there is a post daily! Shit, Shit, Shit! Actual people, people who DON’T know me are coming here and hoping to find something whitty to read and to keep coming back for more.

I’m screwed!

How do I make those people stay?, maybe I can bride them? Oh, no that will not work, or maybe it will?

I have no idea how to make those people STAY?  WHAT am I going to do? I need to get a more interesting life! Because, my life is BORING! I work, I live with a funny, artistic guy, his kid (from time to time), 2 dogs, 2 cats, I cook, and I’m a paper engineer! I travel, I take pictures (not so good pictures) and I decorate with the help of very talented friends.

IM.IN.TROUBLE!

Because, oh boy, I like those numbers, I want those numbers back, I need those numbers!!!!

See, total off the wall CRAZY! (Maybe THAT’S reason enough to have those readers stay!).

I then took the time to learn to use the stats menu in WordPress and found out that I owe most of those number to the post that was done in that favorite blog I spoke about here.  If I did not love them enough then, I TOTALLY LOVE THEM NOW!

But, Now I still have to put forth my own effort and make those Three thousand eight hundred and twenty reader to COME BACK! And have them bring more readers and we can totally have a pyramid blog going! Hey, I’m on to something!

So I have planning to do! And marketing to do! and while a procrastinate a bit on those task, I, for now, would like to enjoy the part where Three thousand eight hundred and twenty readers came and stayed and commented and gave me praises and totally made my DAY!

And for that person that found me by typing this “will maca stop me sleeping”  and finding me:

I totatlly would STOP you from sleeping! 

Remember my new obsession?

And the hard time I had with it?

Well it turns out that all I needed was to search a bit around the Internet and find tips from someone that knew what they were talking about.  After Google came back with hit after hit, apparently paper toys is bigger than I previously mentioned.  I hit the mother-load and found myself  a paper engineer, who took the time to write it all down step by step and teach  to do it right.

Apparently I was using the wrong tools.  Wrong scissors, wrong glue, wrong process, wrong, wrong wrong!

Wow, I feel better already!

Hi, my name is Monica and I’m a paper ENGINEER!

Where was I? oh, uh, yeah wrong everything.  So I got with the program and returned the “wrong” stuff, go the “right” stuff and started more determine than ever that I was going to do this and they were going to come out bea-u-TIFUL!

or at least what they were meant to look like.

The paper WAS not the BOSS OF ME!

So, the goal was this:

I started cutting:

and folding, and scoring and glueing and LORDY, LORD behold the end product….

Drum roll please….

I present you with the end product

TA DA!!!!!

Not bad eh?  I liked it so much that I built another one:

And another one:

Yes, you are very, very sweet

I had to stop myself, I was on a roll but they are cute and boy do they relax my ass down from a long day at work.

What to do them? Go here and download the templates and be one with paper!

Or better yet a PAPER ENGINEER!

I have decided to add a new addition to the blog.  If you are detailed oriented, you probably caught it by now.  If not, I’m not going to make you work for it.

You are all busy, people. 

Plus, I hate it when people make me guess for things.

Those that know me well, also know that one of my greatest passion (besides cake) is cooking.  I love to cook, I will be a happy camper in a kitchen cooking up a storm for everyone that wish to stop by our house. 

For a while I been wanting to create a cooking blog, but I just had not had the time, or the space or the direction in how to go about it.

In other words, I been procrastinating

But, no more!

I have added another page (see the menu on top) called “Sweet Bites”.  I will start to post once a week a favorite recipe that I have tried from my own cookbook or tried from others (cookbooks, friends, family, restaurant, magazines, etc) and modify to our taste buds over at our house (we have big eaters over here!).

I hope you enjoy it and if you have ideas to make it better and easier for you to follow along, drop me a note.

Yes, there in the comment section, because you all know how I love a comment.

First up: Picadillo

In 22 days we will be packing up Tom’s mom car with 3 adults, 1 eight-year old and 2 dogs, one which weights the same amount as me (and I’m not kidding). We will then hit the I-95 north and work out way out of Florida, past Georgia, all of South Carolina and parts of North Carolina.

So we can spend 3 days stuffing ourselves full of Thanksgiving food and family fun.  I’m looking forward to this trip because

1) I don’t have to cook
2) I don’t have to host and
3) I don’t have to do anything at.all, except relax and let others do everything.

Heaven… I’m in heaven (well NOT YET, but in TWENTY-TWO DAYS I will be)

But, there is something I’m NOT looking forward to, and that is the ACTUAL car trip because, well simply put people, its Ten hours! Let me repeat that for those in back of the room – TEN HOURS.IN.A.CAR with a 8-year old, my boyfriend’s mom, 2 dogs and the actual boyfriend.

LORD.HELP.ME

So, since I know myself and I know that I will probably want to jump off the car (and my skin) in the first half-hour of the drive, I decided to convince Tom, that the best course of action for me all of us would be to split this trip up and do it in a 2-part, 5 hour drive.

Which means that I have to find a hotel, on the way, to take us ALL in.

Including the 2 dogs

Did I mention that Rufus weights what I weight?

Yeah, I thought so.

This is going to be hard

I have 22 days to stress over it.

Like most bloggers out there, I read a lot of blogs.  

My Google reader has over 60-plus subscriptions, that keep me engaged daily, while I try to look busy at work.  My likes are all over the place, since I read blogs about a lot of topics: mommy, cooking, couples, singles, travel and design/decorating. Some are super funny, some are super serious, some are REALLY political, and others are work related. But, if I have to choose any particular one, I love the cooking and the decorating/design blogs that I subscribe to, because, secretly I want to be a decorator who publishes a cookbook and totally get shot to stardom. And then I don’t have to come to work every day and take 2 hours to write my post during working hours and make it look like I’m doing official work related stuff.

Yeah, I’m weird that way.

Anyway, one of my all time favorite decorating/design blog is these 2 super adorable couple with their super adorable dog and their super adorable house. And I totally want to steal their life.

And…I have to stop now or they may think I’m totally blog-stalking them, and may block me and I totally need to covet  their pictures, ideas, decorating tips and design advice every chance I get, so lets move on.

Today, as I pulled up my reader list, I saw their new post and casually clicked on it, AND I did a double take, because THERE.I WAS! Or actually my kitchen-nook, dresser was…THERE! Featured in their monthly Reader Redesign.  Side note: Their reader redesign is all about posting how stalker readers, like me, send their design before and after and they totally give us praises for mixing paint and getting it right without killing anyone (or anything) in the process.

A couple of months back, after my friends and I went all crazy and decorated our new rental home, I  was so proud of the way it turned out I submitted my makeover to them to see if I hit it a home run… because, you know, I needed validation that I was not crazy for using crazy colors and  I live better when I get heavy praises from strangers.

Because, I’m weird creepy that way.

But now, now we are superstars!

Ok, ok, the dresser and kitchen nook are superstars.

Tomorrow will be a magical night. There will be candy, haunted houses and little goblins running around in costumes!

Meaning I will be hiding inside my house, with all the lights out and probably reading by candlelight, to make sure it does not look like anyone is at home. I will not be buying candy, I will not be dressing up and I will not be spooking anyone.

Do you think I like Halloween?

You are right… I do not.

It’s not my favorite “mass-produce” holiday; in fact I never even knew it existed until I moved to the States. In my origin country we do not celebrate it, in my ancestors country, Italy, the dead are celebrated on November 1 known as “Giorno dei muorti” (Day of the Dead). It’s remembered as the “All Saint Day” and most of Italy celebrates it by visiting the cemetery, keeping the tombs washed and pulling weeds and making sure fresh flowers adorn the marble slabs. When I lived in Italy, I notice how the Italians keep their dead relatives alive. I remember thinking that in Italy, no one dies. They hang around the house, peer out of church statues and paintings, and reside in ancient buildings. It’s not only the saints who remain active in daily life. It’s everyone. The past continues to exist simultaneously with the present.

Of course, since nobody in my family has died in the States (all alive and well, thank-you-very-much), no tombs to take care off, SCORE for me.

Plus, I never really like the whole spooky, scare-you-out of your wits activities, not even when I was little and got to dress up and beg ask for treats. I hate hunted houses, due to an episode back when I was 12 and in Disney park, but, that another story, for another time…I cannot even get into the spirit, and I’m a HUGE holiday decorator, Christmas at my house is a constant craft project, I put Martha to shame!. But, if you see our house now?  Totally anti-Halloween. Not a decoration in sight, not even a carved pumpkin (90 degree weather is not an incentive to have one – TRUST.ME) or a hanging witch. This year, I totally wanted to DO something, with Tom’s 8-year old boy at home, I thought I would find my internal hallow-mojo and decorate.

Ahhh… yeah, nope…no-dice, nothing, zip, nada, no hallow-mojo to be found

I think I’m broken

Thank God for sites like this

That makes me do things like this

I'm Spokyfied! BOO!

I may find my hallow-mojo after all.

Happy Halloween everyone, be safe and eat lots of candy!

This took place during dinner last night:

Me:  “Why can’t you just put the boots in the closet?”

Tom:  “Where I want to put them, where I want to put them”

Me:   “Are you kidding me? Did you actually think you were going to get away with that logic?”

Tom:  “That’s my logic and I’m sticking to it”

Me:  “Buddy, let me translate YOUR LOGIC, because what you really MEANT to say was: That’s where they landed after I took them off my feet and I was way too lazy to put them in the closet”.

And that folks is how you know you are living with a man, when this type of conversations makes total sense.

This happen about 20+ years ago, I may be a bit blurry on the actual words, but this is how I remember it:

It was a Monday, like any Monday to most people.  To me it was my first day of school in a new city, living in a new house and surrounded by new views, new people, new everything.  Back then kids walked from their houses to our designated bus stop.  I was starting junior high, and like most new kids, was shy and apprehensive about the whole “newness” of it all.  I wanted to basically hide myself and play the part of spectator, feel my way around those strangers, before I let them in.

So, I sat a way apart from the cluster of kids, looking, but trying NOT TO LOOK like the new kid.

No such luck, within a few minutes, a girl, about my age, with short, blondish hair walked up to me and without missing a beat asked me:

“Hi, you are new? What’s your name? I’m Monica and you are?”

Still not being very trustful, I sort of responded “Yes, and actually, my name is also Monica”

And she without missing a beat, “Oh, ok, I guess I need to be called by my real name, since we can’t both be named Monica”.

And that is how my BFF and I met.

We became quite inseparable all through Junior High, we lived 10 houses away from each other, we walked to the bus stop together, too many pool dates, and overnights, she was there to dish when I had my first crush with the high school kid that lived across from her house.  She was there when I was kissed for the first time.  She was there when my heart was broken for the first time, and many times afterwards. We lived together; played together, travelled together, and held each other through the lowest of lows and the highest of high and I considered nothing less than part of my family.

She is made of tough stuff and she has been my greatest champion, critic and has always had my back.  You may think that we are constantly in touch and always keeping tabs on each other.  But you are wrong.  We live in different cities and we do not talk to each other often, ( We both secretly hate to talk on the phone, so we may go on weeks without getting in touch with each other) she does have an advantage, since she reads my blog and knows what is going on with my life.  But, when we do get together is non-stop updates, laughter and numerous planning for the “next” get-together.

This past weekend I got in my car and headed southbound to Miami-land to spend a weekend together, just us.

Away we go...

It was 3 days of waking up to these views (If I’m honest, beside missing the BFF once I moved out of Miami, I do miss these kinds of views as well):

You can see the sea from here!

Lots laughter, shopping, gossip and way too many yummy martinis. (She is a whiz making drinks!).  And also lots of play time with this cutie pie:

Yes, my PJ's have frogs, don't you judge

The good news, in 2 weeks we do it all over again, this time on my side of the pond.

So, you all know that last month I was basically dragging my ass all around.  Speaking like a robot and sustaining myself with will power, because my body, well my treacherous body was retaliating and decided to make me go crazy for a bit.

A decided to fix this bit of inconvenience with a couple of doctor’s visit to zap it into shape and stop the funny business of fucking around with my moods. A bunch of test later and it turned out that the birth control pills I been using were the culprit here. My doctor told me to stop taking it immediately and that he will see me in 6-weeks time to give me a blood work up and see where we are moving forward and to see my regular doctor.

Well, of course I ran home to check out what the hell were the side effects of what I was taking, and discovered that I was the poster girl for everything that was noted on the warning label. Weight gain – CHECK, absurd boob growth (and tender and sore) – CHECK, intense mood swings – CHECK!, Insomnia – CHECK and CHECK!

It never occurred to me that all of this was the result of taking the Pill – maybe because I never experience any of that before. I have been under a huge amount of stress at work and figure that all of that was just that, stress taking a toll on my body.

And while most of the issues were on account of the Pill, and after going off it, my moods and my side effect began to improve tremendously, my doctor did advice me that I need to find ways to work on my stress, which had nothing to do with the Pill. I’m very bad about relaxing and taking it easy and letting it ride out. I hate to go to the gym, so that is out. Using the Wii at home to work out has been a constant thought, but I just cannot bring myself to start on it. Instead, I have suckered Tom in walking the dogs as much as we can, which has worked wonders, not only for me but for the dogs as well – BONUS ALL AROUND!  I’m still eyeing the Wii… ah, maybe a bit later.

I have also gone back to doing creative things. I love solving puzzles and believe me this relaxes me to no end, the tedious work in finding the right pieces and making the picture come to life, may sound stupid, but I find it an accomplishment of sort and if it keeps my mind busy and active at the same time.

So when I stumbled across this, I was all over it like bread on butter. Paper Toys, I mean this is like a puzzle, but on a higher level, I needed to cut, and use an X-Acto  knife and GLUE! and they are cute and I can add it to my collection of totally irrelevant stuff. Plus did I mention they are cute? And they have a HUGE following and like good things in life, they’re free (Unless you count the printing costs or the hours upon hours of construction time.) But, seeing the choices of robots, spaceships, buildings and so much more online sent a little thrill through my toy-loving soul.

Then I went nuts! And downloaded a bunch of templates to do, because I need to WORK ON LOWERING MY STRESS LEVEL – Doctor’s Orders! Which is TOTALLY a valid reason to run to the nearest craft store and spend over forty bucks on stock paper, cutting mat, precision scissors, X-Acto knife, and glue.

Got back to the office and printed a bunch to get me started, then later on when I got home, I choose (what looked like) the easiest to start with  and went to town tackling my new found project.  This is what the end product should have ended up looking like:

http://www.marshallalexander.net

After 1.5 hours of cutting, and folding and scoring and cussing (lots of cussing) I ended up with this:

Hello there, hot stuff!

Mind you, it’s a bit messy (need to work on getting the glue on the INSIDE of the paper and not ALL around the OUTSIDE),  and it DOES not LOOK like it should (refer to first picture) but during that time I was totally into doing this, and while there were moments that I shouted “I’m GIVE UP!” and put it down, I heard a shout from the other side of the house “Don’t, keep at it!” from my main cheerleader Tom.. I continued on.

I guess I was a bit put out on the “lack” of instructions; they were not very clear and left A LOT to the imagination.  I made the mistake to not print out what it SHOULD look like to use as a reference point but at the end I was happy with it, I know I can do a better and cleaner job on the next one.  Which will look something like this:

If this is not the cutest thing, move on.

This time I downloaded the instructions, so I’m PREPARED! and after visiting a bunch of sites and read about it some more, I got some inside tips in making it look like the intended end product.  So, let’s get to folding, cutting and gluing people!

I’m sorry that I have not updated this since… oh well a LONG TIME. And you probably thinking, well you better have something GOOD for the past 2 weeks. And frankly with the exception of the “story” mentioned before this post, life has been seriously boring. Work, home life, and work, dude, I’m bored myself and its MY LIFE.

About the story.

At the beginning of October I took off to attend a work conference in the most happy annoying place in the world – Disney. On the third day of my trip, I received a phone call from Tom that went something like this:

Tom: Hey baby, how you doing?
Me: Good, totally over the Mickey Mouse thing, ready to come home
Tom: oh, yeah, well today I got home and found a surprise
Me: Shut up!, Did we win something??? Did we?
Tom: yeah, we did, 2 dead squirrels
Me: Oh, sorry, what did you say? Squirrels…as in those things that are in the backyard and carry acorns…Seriously?
Tom: Yep.
Me: Dude, get to the point, what are 2 dead squirrels doing INSIDE THE HOUSE?
Tom: Well..

And here is the story…

Apparently Tom got home and found the floor of our dinning room, the walls in the living room and the floor space between the Living room, Kitchen and back room full of black foot prints, big and small, as in tiny small, all over the place. As he followed them, he found this medium side black mount in the living room… after close inspection he realized it was a dead squirrel. (YUCK! That was my take, Tom’s, take was “WTF?”)

After further inspection he was able to piece together the chain of events (we totally would kick CSI butts, with our investigating process – CBS CALL ME!). It seem the squirrel(s), that’s a plural for you (he found a smaller one, dead in the back room) were inside the chimney (which is blocked off and sealed – not so good apparently, by a round cover in the dining room), somehow, they (the squirrels) pushed the cover off and spilled out into the dinning room.

This basically probably became the “oh-oh” moment for them, because once they did this, they probably encounter this pair face-to-face: 

Don't let those face you fool you, they are killers now

Now we are sure that Rufus played a very small role here, unfortunately, he is a coward at heart and probably ran to hide during the commotion that was created by Maggie chasing the squirrels all around the house until catching them and killing them. Yep, we have a killer machine in our fold.  The poor “trespassing“ squirrel(s) had no chance in hell.

During this killer spree, a lot of  black sod from the chimney was carefully pasted all over the house: walls, carpet, furniture, and all over the dogs. According to Tom, Maggie was totally full of black sod from head to tail – which further incriminates her in this saga.

My response to this narrative tale? I’m SO GLAD THAT I’m IN ORLANDO AND NOT AT HOME! Because it saved me from
a) the heart attack of coming home to dead squirrels and footprints all OVER THE PLACE and b) the clean up of dead things.

Poor Tom.

We have since fixed the chimney opening, and Maggie apparently has lowered her “killer watch” to a manageable pricking of ears when there is an outside noise – which we are calling  ”Level 1″.  We have replaced the carpet and clean up the footprints off the walls. And I’m sure that the word is out that we have a killer dog in the mist and squirrels are the main target. So, squirrels beware!

Of course, would I have been there and found the massacre, I would totally be showing you pictures of the crime scene, with gore and all.

Because these types of events are what makes great blog post.