Simply Awesome

Introducing the Bacon Explosion:

Apparently, the recipe for this has become an Internet phenomenon in the past month, as described by the New York Times.

It's a huge hunk of barbecued meat, specifically "two pounds of bacon woven through and around two pounds of sausage and slathered in barbecue sauce."

I'm impressed by anything that requires weaving bacon strips:

But I don't think I'm going to make this recipe. I think it's way too much meat to buy (therefore expensive) and it would probably cause you to gain 20 pounds on the spot!

(Photos courtesy of Don Ipock for the NY Times)

There He Goes...

Haha, this series of photos featured on Boston.com are HILARIOUS. They perfectly sum up how icy it is in Boston today.

Apparently, a Globe photographer, David Ryan, was just getting up from his own slip on the ice and happened to capture this guy falling - talk about serendipitous! Kudos to him for capturing this on film and sharing it:

These are timed so perfectly that I want to turn them into a flipbook.

I also love how the random Bostonian has a Dunkin' Donuts cup (natch) and manages to keep it upright (although it looks like he squeezes it hard in the end). Hopefully the poor guy didn't hurt anything and is fine with his public humiliation!

If You Don't Like The Weather...

...then wait five minutes, so goes the old New England saying.

My response today is, "If you don't like the weather, then move away!"

Conversely, I almost enjoyed the umpteenth snowstorm that hit New England today and dumped more of the white stuff on top of the snow piles that haven’t melted away from past storms.

Why?

Because it kept most people indoors and working from home today. I’ll take an empty, snow-covered highway to one that is packed with stupid drivers any day. My morning and evening commutes were almost pleasant. Other than the pouring rain, oversize puddles and tons of slush everywhere. Gotta love living in New England during the winter.

Meet My New Running Shoes

Asics Gel Kahana 2

I fell in love with them at DSW. Unfortunately, all DSW had was THREE boxes of size 6 and I wear a 7.5. When I arrived home, I checked the DSW site and they were still out of my size. Zappos has them for ten dollars more, so I may just suck it up and pay the full price. Except I just realized that there's an online DSW coupon for another $10 off with a purchase over $50. That's a $20 difference! I think I may be visiting a few more DSW's in my area.




They appear darker gray in person and I love the gray and green combo. Actually, they look very similar in coloring to my current gym shoes, a pair of Nikes. But those are starting to get worn out (no cushioning left) and it's out with the old, in with the new.

Going to the Gym is Hard Enough...

...without having smelly guys making working out even tougher.

I was minding my own business on my favorite machine, which I still don't know the name of - it's a cross between an elliptical and a stair master.

A guy plunked down on the machine beside me, and immediately, his smell wafted towards me. I'm not trying to be cruel. Yes, I know gyms are filled with sweaty, smelly people. But this wasn't guy musk from working out. This smelled like I peed on my clothes, left them in a pile for a month, put them on, pooped in my pants and then decided to work out.

I tried to breathe through my mouth (even though you're supposed to breathe through your nose). It didn't work. I could still smell him. I know I was making involuntary faces, grimaces people probably attributed to working out. I couldn't help it, my nose is pretty sensitive to scents and it DID NOT like his smell.

I started to get self-conscious, hoping people walking by my machine didn't think it was me that smelled. Finally, after twenty long minutes of me mentally telling him to move on, he left. Two dainty spritzes of cleaning solution, a quick swipe with a paper towel and he was gone. That is why I have started wiping down my machines before and after using them - there's no telling whose funky body was touching it before yours. Andrew being even more fastidious had already started this practice after viewing other people skip their machine wipe downs (People, take note, it's really bad gym etiquette - and really gross - not to wipe down your machine after using it!)

Joyce 1, Mouse 0

I just enjoyed a slice of my cobbler with some light whipped cream - delicious.



I'll have my cobbler and eat it too, mice be damned. I'm taking great satisfaction in knowing that I got to taste it and the mice didn't.

Stuart Little Must Die

Sunday started off as a pretty typical day. Before Andrew and I headed to the gym, I spent time washing the dishes and whipping up a batch of Peach and Nectarine Cobbler. I left it cooling on the stove and we left for the gym.

When we got home, Andrew headed upstairs to shower while I went to the sink to wash my hands so I could start preparing dinner. The last thing I was thinking about was mice, since we hadn't see any sign of them since last weekend. I was hoping we had caught the only two mice in the house.

Then I looked over to my left, saw a mouse head peering out of a stove top burner and yelled my head off. Andrew came racing down the stairs to figure out what was wrong and it was pretty obvious since the damned mouse kept poking its head out and looking at us. We ended up lifting the stove top and this is the sight that met our eyes:

Can you see the mouse?

Here's a closer look at it:

Ok, I'll say it. The thing was ridiculously cute with its large glistening eyes. But it was also running all over the interior of my stove. Andrew and I tried to trap it in an empty cardboard container but it ended up leaping out of the stove, across the sink, across my dishpan, ran around my drying dishes, ran back into the dishpan and leaped off the counter onto the floor, heading back into my kitchen walls through a crack in the counter next to the dishwasher.

The damn thing ruined an entire afternoon's worth of work. Although the first batch of cobbler looked untouched, Andrew rightfully convinced me to throw it out. It was just so painful to do since it looked great. It's one thing to throw away something you've ruined by burning or something that tastes gross. It's another thing to dump a dessert that looks absolutely perfect! We also wiped down the counters with disinfectant spray and washed ALL the dishes over again. And the dishpan.

As we head to bed tonight, Andrew's put out two more traps. He's hoping for a trifecta tomorrow morning - mice in all three traps. The mice are cute but they're getting bold and running wild. I'm sorry Stuart Little, Mattimeo and all the other cute fictional mice I used to read about. It's time for you to leave my house peacefully or die. I've hit my limit.

Blueberry and Nectarine Cobbler

Oddly enough, the inspiration from this post came from going to the gym.

Andrew and I have been on a roll, going to the gym 3 - 4 times a week now that he has joined my gym. While I'm at the gym, I love having reading material in addition to music. Since I'm raiding the gym's supply of magazines that people have brought and left behind, my reading material ranges from entertainment magazines like People and US Weekly (my favorite since they don't require a lot of concentration and reading while you're on a machine) and women's magazines like O and Good Housekeeping. The problem with the latter type of magazines are they contain a lot of recipes and pictures of food, and you're often hungry and staring at said pictures. So anyway, long story short, I was reading a summer issue of O, and it featured all sorts of luscious blueberry desserts. So I was inspired to go home and make a blueberry dessert. I was excited to find the recipe for Easy Batter Fruit Cobbler on Allrecipes.com, since it seemed ridiculously easy.

I relied on frozen blueberries mostly for this batch but I know in the summer when I am overrun with fruit, this will be the perfect recipe to use!


Blueberry and Nectarine Cobbler

INGREDIENTS
4 tablespoons butter (I replaced this with Pam cooking spray with flour)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk
2 cups of sliced fresh peaches or nectarines, or whole blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries or a combination of fruits (or a 12-ounce package of frozen berries) (I went with a cup of frozen blueberries and 1 sliced nectarine)
1 tablespoon sugar

DIRECTIONS

1. Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position, and heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Spray pan with cooking spray and set aside.
3. Whisk flour, 3/4 cup of sugar, baking powder and salt in small bowl. Add milk; whisk to form a smooth batter. Pour batter into pan, then scatter fruit over batter. Sprinkle with remaining 1 Tb. of sugar.
4. Bake until batter browns and fruit bubbles, 50 to 60 minutes. (I baked it for 30 minutes). Serve warm or at room temperature with a dollop of whipped cream or a small scoop of vanilla ice cream, if desired. We skipped the ice cream since we're trying to be a little healthier in our eating habits!

This is what the batter looked like before going in the oven - I think next time, I won't skimp on the fruit so much.













This is what it looked like after it was done baking.













However, I did not get to eat this lovely batch of cobbler. To be explained in my next post, I ended up scraping this batch into the garbage.


This is the second batch of cobbler I made, which oddly enough, ended up looking completely different. I think maybe because the oven was already heated up this time around from baking a batch of mac and cheese for dinner.

Life in the Fast Lane

The Mass Turnpike Authority just announced this week that they're doing away with the $25.95 fee for Fast Lane transponders.

I've been holding out for years on getting the transponder for a variety of reasons.

To be honest, I'm not on the Pike often enough to consider paying tolls in cash a hassle. The few times I've driven down to NYC, Andrew's been kind enough to bring along his transponder to handle both the Pike and the NY bridge tolls. And I'm always kind of bothered by having some sort of agency being able to track your movements, even though I have nothing to be guilty about. It's the Big Brother-is-always-watching-you type of feeling that I will readily admit is a bit silly. Finally, I also think it would be very easy for the MTA to slip extra charges on your bill, because really, who is going to remember how many times they paid a toll?

But the biggest hurdle has always been the fee. If the MTA really wanted people to use Fast Lane, I felt they needed to give away the transponders for free.

The catch with the MTA's new policy is that users will have to pay $.50 monthly fee instead. But I'm actually fine with that. I also like that fact that replacement transponders will be free as well (considering how I'm apt to lose things).

You can read more about the change on Boston.com, but I think I may be convinced to sign-on due to those times where I have been stuck in a ridiculously long cash lane while people are whizzing by on Fast Lane. It just depends on whether I need to go to an office to pick up a transponder, in which case, it'll honestly probably take me another six months to get that done, or whether I can have the sucker mailed to me.

Hard Hat Fashion

We went on a tour of our new office, and as it is still under construction and considered a worksite, I had to wear the appropriate safety gear. So I thought I would share how fashionable a hard hat can be:

Haha, I know most of you can't picture me doing anything that requires a hard hat!

Of course, I remembered to wear my work boots with the electrical hazard rating:

Which came in handy considering how much random crap was on the ground.

Monster Robeez

How cute are these shoes?


















For those of you who haven't had friends who have had babies in the past couple of years, Robeez baby shoes are one of the popular yuppie gifts to give - soft leather baby shoes that come in a wide variety of cute and colorful designs.

As Andrew and I need to shop for a baby gift for a former coworker/friend of his, I was curious to see if there were any Robeez that were suitable for a baby whose gender is unknown. And I stumbled across this pair. Would it be bad to be selfish and buy them for my unknown future children?

I know it's a bit wasteful to buy shoes for kids that most likely won't be able to walk while wearing them (which is why I would never get them in 0 - 6 month range, with the 12 - 18 month range being the most practical). But they're just too darn cute! I love shopping for baby stuff, it's hard to keep myself restrained when everything is adorable and miniature in size. Much more satisfying then shopping for my kittie-nephew Ben.

Sea Kittens?

Listening to one of my favorite radio stations on the way to work this morning, I heard the DJs making fun of PETA's latest campaign called "Save the Sea Kittens".












What the heck is a Sea Kitten?

It's PETA's attempt to conduct a PR makeover for fish because, in their own words, "Would people think twice about ordering fish sticks if they were called sea kitten sticks? " Basically, they think people will stop eating fish if they picture them as being as cute and cuddly as kittens.

Look PETA, there's no way a slimy, scaly, slack-jawed fish is going to look cute as a fluffy kitten. Plus, people eat cats in some countries (for all of you out there thinking about kae-gogi, it's not South Korea!!)

Of course, the term Sea Kitten got mocked endlessly by the DJs and the callers. And all the callers agreed that Sea Kitten or Fish, both would still get eaten in the end if they tasted good (I agree).

The part of the show I enjoyed most was when everyone tried to come up with cute names for the other types of meat. The two that I heard before I arrived at work were:

• Mini Moo-Moo


• Little Buck-Buck

Haha, it brought a smile to my face this morning. I'm sure it's not as funny reading it (and everyone knows how bad I am at telling a joke or a funny story). And I would still eat them all.

Happy Inauguration Day!

To celebrate President Obama's first day in office, I made Obama Sugar Cookies:
















I know the frosting job is a little sloppy but cut me some slack, the mice did eat my frosting bags so I had to resort to Ziploc bags to decorate this bunch.

These were gobbled up at work, especially since I brought them into the conference room that was booked as an inauguration viewing room.

It was truly a moment to remember, being squeezed in with 70 - 80 people, watching Barack Obama give his inauguration speech (the communications major in me approves of his speech and his speaking style) and having the whole room clap in unison with the hope and joy we were feeling.

Anyway, back to the cookies. I used a cream cheese sugar cookie recipe from Allrecipes.com that also had almond flavoring - yum! I modified it based on the review of another baker who had tried the recipe.

Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
  

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large bowl, combine the sugar, butter, cream cheese, salt, almond and vanilla extracts, and egg yolk. Beat until smooth. Stir in flour and baking powder until well blended. Chill the dough for 8 hours, or overnight. I just chilled my dough for 30 minutes and it turned out just fine.
2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough 1/3 at a time to 1/8 inch thickness, refrigerating remaining dough until ready to use. Cut into desired shapes with lightly floured cookie cutters. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Leave cookies plain for frosting, or brush with slightly beaten egg white and sprinkle with candy sprinkles or colored sugar.
4. Bake for 7 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until light and golden brown. Cool cookies completely before frosting

I went with a new recipe for the icing, dumping my usual buttercream recipe for Allrecipes.com's Sugar Cookie. As a warning, this icing is super-sweet so you'll want to use it sparingly on the cookies. And although I loved the hint of almond flavor, I think the regular buttercream tastes better. However, nothing beats the glossy finish this icing has so you be the judge!

Sugar Cookie Icing

INGREDIENTS (I ended up tripling this recipe to have enough icing to frost 3 dozen cookies)

• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 2 teaspoons milk
• 2 teaspoons light corn syrup (I used 4 teaspoons to get the right consistency)
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
• assorted food coloring (I used food coloring paste for more intense color)

1. In a small bowl, stir together confectioners' sugar and milk until smooth. Beat in corn syrup and almond extract until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add more corn syrup.
2. Divide into separate bowls, and add food colorings to each to desired intensity. Dip cookies, or paint them with a brush.

Andrew At Work Montage

This post is dedicated to poor Andrew and all the work he did this weekend shoveling, breaking ice, clearing cars and paths, and muttering at the frozen gutter.


Andrew at the front walk:


Andrew shoveling in the main walkway between the two driveways:


Andrew clearing his car:

Andrew clearing a path around my car:

Smile! He notices me taking pictures:

You Guessed It, More Snow

Despite our best intentions, Andrew and I did skip going to the gym yesterday.

Why?

Because we forgot about all the weather forecast.

We woke up Sunday morning with every intention of going out. We even got dressed in our gym clothes.

But when we opened the door, we found a good four inches of snow on the ground. And it was still snowing hard. After debating the state of the roads, we retreated back into the house, put our pajamas back on and had breakfast.

Once the snow finished, this is what it looked like outside.

That would be Andrew's Civic buried under snow in the back driveway:



The other part of the back driveway:


My car in the front driveway:



In our defense, we did shovel out this morning and go to the gym. Quite impressive, considering we didn't eat our first meal of the day until 2:30 pm because of all that we accomplished.

Dead Mouse #2

Andrew's been racing down the stairs each morning like a kid eager for Christmas. Except in his case, his excitement is over checking the mouse trap. Unfortunately, it's been empty all weekend but yielded another critter this morning. It just makes me wonder how many more are running around in the woodwork.


I wavered over posting another picture of mouse #2, and decided to compromise by putting it into a link. So it's your choice to view it. Be warned, this one didn't go as peacefully as the first (we think the trap flipped) but the mouse still died in a humane manner.


Dead Mouse #2


Andrew has suggested that we post the pictures of the dead mice by the trap as warning for future furry trespassers.

Lusting Over...Water Bottles?

With an Amazon gift card (thanks Rich!) burning a hole in my pocket, I'm having a hard time making a decision on what I should buy with. There is just too many choices, and I'm determined not to get books, because that's something I usually buy and I want to treat myself to something that is more of an indulgence.


One thing I'm considering is an aluminum water bottle - they're pretty indestructible, cool looking, good for the environment, and most importantly, they save you money in the long run.


At first I was going to go for a Sigg bottle as they are one of the most well-known names out there. However, I wasn't thrilled by their designs.


The two that I liked the most were:


Tomorrow Blossoms

Spring Has Sprung

There's always the classic traveler bottle in Green (but I think it's a bit boring):

Another company called Earthlust has much better designs and similar pricing - I'm just not sure about their reliability since I've never heard of them and there aren't many customer comments:

Poppy

Flower

Parsley

And another unknown company, Gaiam's Tree of Life

What design do you like best? And does anyone have experience with any of these brands and would recommend one over the other?

Meet The Hottest New Band...

Thanks to video game Rock Band, Amy, Joey, Phu, Andrew and I turned into musicians for a night.

At least, wannabe muscicians. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

This is how we appeared on the game:

Amy and Phu are clearly having a good time:

Although Andrew held out at first, he eventually joined the band as bass guitar:

I think it's even safe to say that he had a good time and really got into playing:

I had a hard time following the notes on screen AND remembering to strum:


Singing was easier for me, but that's not to say that I was better at it:


Poor Ben had to suffer through it all!

Jamjuli For Dinner

Andrew joined my gym today, yay! We promptly worked out for almost two hours and I'm hoping this will be the start of many joint exercise sessions - we're planning on going back together tomorrow as well.



After closing down the gym (having always worked out during the weekdays, I didn't realize they closed at 6 pm on the weekend), we were ready for dinner. In fact, I would describe it as starving since the last meal we had was french toast for breakfast around 11 am. I was too tired to cook and Andrew had the brilliant suggestion to order takeout from our favorite Thai place, Jamjuli.

This is our typical order:

• Two orders of hot and sour soup (chock-full of mushrooms and shrimp)
• Pad Thai for Andrew
• Vegetable spring rolls for me (with a yummy turnip dipping sauce)
• White rice ( I would normally make this at home, but no way was it possible for me to wait 30 minutes for a batch to cook!)

Full and content, we have big plans to be lazy and watch a movie tonight, relatively guilt-free.

Brrrrrrrr

It's really cold today. I mean, really cold.

This is what my car showed for the outside temp this morning - not including windchill.

Lookin' Good, Kid

This is just a gratuitous post - Andrew looked especially handsome this morning wearing one of the Brooks Brothers sweaters I got him for Christmas!



Sickening, I know. Deal with it.

Dead Mouse - Avoid This Post

...if you are eating, have a sensitive stomach or hate to see anything dead. Seriously. Not that I go out of my way to post provocative pictures but this blog is really supposed to offer a glimpse into my life, both the good parts and the bad. You've been warned so I don't want any angry comments about this picture!


































Andrew set a trap on Wednesday night with some peanut butter and told me he arranged the spoonful into a peak so he could tell if the mouse nibbled away at it without setting off the trap.

Thursday morning, the trap was untouched. But when I came home from work later that day, I could tell that something had nibbled away at the peanut butter. When Andrew came home, he checked the trap with a water bottle to see if it worked (it did), added more peanut butter and reset the trap.

This morning, this is the sight that greeted our eyes:




It's bigger than I expected. I thought it would look like one of the puffballs that you see running around subway stations. And unexpectedly cute. But honestly, it also creeped me out to see acutal proof (in addition to the pellets) that I really did have mice in the house.

Orange Lunch

I was originally supposed to have a hot pocket for lunch yesterday but it ended up slipping out of my hands and landing on the floor as I was trying to stuff it into its microwave sleeve. I hate the new hot pocket sleeves.

Anyway, I headed down to the cafeteria to grab something else to supplement my lunch and I spotted butternut squash soup with Granny Smith apples. I love butternut squash soup but find that some recipes are too bland or conversely, too spicy (blech to Whole Food's butternut squash, orange and ginger soup). This batch looked nice and thick and I was intrigued by the addition of apples.

As I sat down to eat, I realized that everything I was eating happened to be orange, matching my shirt. This included:

• the soup (very yummy!)
• an orange
• cheddar and sour cream Baked Lay's

Alas, I went with a Diet Dr. Pepper (got to have my caffeine) rather than orange juice as my beverage of choice.

BC On My Mind - Interview Session

I received this email today:

Hi Joyce,

You were so kind to come to a Networking Session last April for BC undergrads. Bob S. had originally given me your name. We are running a Practice Interview Night for students on Feb. XX. A light dinner is served at 5:30pm and the first of three 20 minute practice sessions starts at 6pm. Students would have previously registered for a slot with you through us. Let me know if you are interested and I will follow up with details.

I'm assuming this is a rep from the Career Center because I didn't recognize her name. I have no idea who Bob S is. I know I was contacted last year for the networking session by another BC employee who had chaired the Five Year Reunion Committee I had volunteered for (along with Jen). I volunteered last year since I figured it would be good to build contacts at BC, especially since I hope to work there or at another university one day. Which is probably why I'll end up volunteering for this session, even though I hate interviews in all forms. Even when I'm the interviewer and not the interviewee (is that a word?).

And does anyone get the sentence that states "Students would have previously registered for a slot with you through us." Does that mean they had my name out there already? I didn't see this until I got home from work today but I'll have to do more investigating tomorrow.

All I know is that last year's event featured a lot of eager and awkward freshman (which kind of made me dislike them for being so on their game when I, myself didn't even think about preparing for a future career until my senior year). So I wonder if I'll get juniors and seniors this time around.

BC On My Mind - Jesuits Take Over Congress

I really enjoyed reading this Boston.com post on "New Congress 9 percent Jesuit-educated".

According to stats quoted within it:

• 50 (really 51) members of the 111th Congress are Jesuit-educated
• Georgetown has the most graduates at 18
• But Boston College follows closely behind at 6 graduates (really 7 ) and Holy Cross has 4
• The BC grads, surprisingly, are all Democrats and include
• Senator John F. Kerry (JD 1976)
• Representative Michael Capuano (JD 1977)
• Representative William D. Delahunt (JD 1967)
• Representative Edward J. Markey (BA 1968; JD 1972)
• Representative Paul W. Hodes of New Hampshire (JD 1978)
• Representative Robert C. Scott of Virginia (JD 1973)
• For some reason, Representative Stephen F. Lynch (JD 1991) was left off the original list but he counts as the 7th.

As a BC grad myself, I'm also (duh) Jesuit-educated but no, I don't have aspirations for Congress.

And the funny thing is, I hadn't even heard of Jesuits until I arrived on BC's campus freshman year. I remember reading that BC had the largest Jesuit population in the world in one of the brochures that was sent to me as a prospective student and wondering what a Jesuit was. So that fact definitely wasn't a deciding factor for me to attend!

BC On My Mind - Eagles Deli

As it turns out, due to a combination of random news stories and an email from the BC Career Center, my alma mater is definitely on my mind.

First, Man vs. Food, a Travel Channel show featuring host Adam Richman, visited a bunch of places, including Eagles Deli. I feel like the Travel Channel loves Eagles Deli for some reason, because they featured them in another food special a few years back after naming them the "2nd Best Place to Pigout in the USA." I think that banner was up for years afterwards. Heck, it might still be up now.

What is Eagles Deli? It's a greasy hole-in-the-wall, located in Cleveland Circle near BC and is famous for it's breakfast food and it's burgers. I feel like the Godzilla burger was the one most well-known to students (1 lb. of beef, 4 slices of cheese and 1 lb. of fries).

From the previews, it looks like Adam went for the Challenge burger (5 lbs. of beef, 20 slices of cheese, 20 slices of bacon, 5 lbs. of fries, 1 half sour pickle and a fountain drink). This mound of meat goes for $50.

I guess that you and I will have to tune into the Travel Channel (or set our TiVo's) tonight at 10 p.m. to find out what happens.

Vermin Infestation - Yuck!

"And all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse"...

BECAUSE THEY WERE ALL DEAD AND STUCK IN MOUSE TRAPS.

It's official, I've got mice in the house. And I'm feeling a little bloodthirsty about it.

I was washing the dishes today and I pulled open a seldom-used drawer that is next to the sink to search for a magic eraser sponge.

This is what met my eyes:



The little bastards chewed their way through:

• The insulation that surrounds the dishwasher on the other side of the sink and dragged pieces of it into the drawer
• A plastic Target bag
• Both my waxed fabric and paper icing bags
• A wax birthday candle
• Paper

And left tons of little pellets (any black pellets you see on your screen).

In case you can't see them, here's a shot of the next drawer over and the mess they left on a napkin.

Unlike a horribly embarrassing incident two years ago while Camie was visiting where I thought I had rats in the basement (it ended up being a squirrel and I killed that sucker with a combination of peanut butter/M&M's/rat poison), it's really mice this time. And I feel slightly vindicated.

Last month, the night before I left for Japan, I had been working late each day on little sleep, to make sure I could leave work for two weeks without a guilty conscience. When I got home that night, I still hadn't packed but had to put in another two hours of working time.

So needless to say, I was feeling a bit delirious around midnight when I realized I needed to go to bed and wake up at 4 am to finish packing. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a brown blur race across the kitchen floor. I screamed loudly enough for Andrew to hear from upstairs and he came rushing down. I told him what I thought I saw, he inspected the cabinets where I thought I saw the brown blur go and then he calmed me down enough to go to bed. And I promptly forgot about the incident because I didn't see any other signs of visitors or any more brown blurs.

As I was telling Andrew about the mice tonight, I told him to admit it, he thought I had been hallucinating that night when I told him about the brown blur. He admitted it readily but pointed out that I told him that it was a bird that had hopped across the floor. In my defense, I was tired, it was a brown blur and I thought it moved too quickly to be a mouse.

But the most important thing you need to take away from this story is that I was right about seeing something move across the kitchen floor. And now I need to find a way to annihilate it and all its friends. Before they find the lazy Susan filled with all my snacks and baking supplies.