big problem for such a small part

So the past two weeks have consisted of some setbacks for the MINI (for those that don't know, I drive a MINI Cooper).  First, I had to shell out a bunch of money for new brakes and rotors--not really a setback, just part of every cars general maintenance.  The parts were in, the check was cashed and my uncle, the mechanic (thank God for family members that know what they are doing when it comes to cars) was set to do the brakes/rotors on Saturday. 
Not so fast..... went to leave work on Monday the 11th and she (the MINI) won't start.  Crank, crank, crank, crank...no fire.  She sits there until Thursday.  After a lot of research and really not knowing what to do, my friend suggests I open the gas cap and put it back on and give it a try.  Guess what?  It worked!
Got it home, the brakes were done on Saturday, she ran like a champ Sunday and part of Monday.  Driving home from work Monday the 18th, she's running perfect.  I literally down shift to second gear as I am taking a left onto my street and she decides to take a dump on me.  Crank, crank, crank, crank...no fire.
I get out and try the ol' gas cap routine again.  This time, it's a no-go.  My dad comes over and the two of us throw her in neutral and manage to push her up my driveway into my garage.
After hitching a ride to and from work from my awesome grandparents for three days, stressing out that my car is going to need to be taken to the dealership so they can do their professional tricks and make me pay them boat loads of money, looking through this 1,000+ page manual

that was borrowed from a friend of a friend and finding nothing but confusing fuse options that weren't even in the right place on the car and some more stress, the problem was solved.

This small, quarter-sized 11 dollar relay was the culprit the entire time.  What exactly does it do?  I couldn't tell you.  What I do know is that the "bad" relay was switched out for the "good" relay that controls my air conditioner.  So as it is right now, my car starts but my air won't work.  I picked up the part yesterday so we should be as cool as ice as soon as my uncle or dad can plug it in!
In my next life, I am coming back as a mechanic and will have my own business. 
I could defiantly pull off that navy blue jump suit with the stitched on name badge.

Got Food?

You know you desperately need to go to the grocery store when your work lunch consists of this: 

Notice how there is no bread for the turkey and Kraft single to sit between and the Hillshire Farm container for the turkey sits empty in the upper left.
The beans are cold and leftover from last night's dinner (I had them with a brat).
And it's pretty sad that you have to rely on an Almond Bar that was brought in for a birthday party to have for dessert!
This is not a pitty post, I just thought it was quite funny.
Instead of using my plastic spoon for the beans, I used the fork which was a mistake--I dropped some brown sugar bean sauce mix in between the Tab and squiggle line ( ~ ) keys.  Let's hope I got it all out using the "put a napkin over an unbent paperclip and stick it in between the keys" method.  If it works as good as the folded Post-it to fling the cracker crumbs out when your space bar starts to stick, we'll be good to go!

Work Ramble

I have been in the corporate world for almost 5 years.  Before my cubicle life, I spent about 9 years in the restaurant biz.  I worked at the same place for almost 9 years, mainly as a waitress.  I truly loved my job there.  If I could rely on a set and steady paycheck every two weeks and have weekends free like I do now, I would trade my office chair for an apron any day.
Back to my point.
Someone said something at work the other day- it was a typical 'office life' phrase that you can either look at as very smart sounding, or very corny, depending on your personality- and it got me thinking about the different languages you start to speak when you work in certain environments.  Here is a short list of corporate phrases and how they would translate in the restaurant world:

I have a lot on my plate, will you send Jane Doe an email regarding that price issue?
I am so in the weeds right now, will you take table 61's order?

I need that file yesterday.
I need an order of Buff Wings on the fly to table 11.

Please disregard my last email.
86 tonight's special.

The reports on this page don't match what we talked about.
I rang in those nachos to come out first.

The representatives from Office World are here.
The Bingo people that don't order food, order endless refills of Cherry Pepsi, sit at your table all night and don't tip are here.

Weird and Wacky Mail...I mean Male.

Once in awhile I will get an unmarked (or sometimes marked) envelope in the mail that is not junk mail. An instant smile comes across my face when I get a handwritten envelope addressed to me. Who doesn’t love a handwritten something? Yesterday this happened. I opened the mail box to see an envelope marked with blue ink. Now even though the envelope had a return address, I knew instantly by the handwriting who it was from. My friend has this funny thing she does once in awhile where she sends random things in the mail that she knows people will get a kick out of. It’s a great surprise, and they are always hilarious. Whether it’s a ridiculous Fashion Police section from US Weekly, a random advertisement or a wacky newspaper article, they always make my day.
I opened the envelope to find this article from the NY Post about a guy with Julia Roberts' face tattooed all over himself. Now my friend and I are big Julia Roberts fans; I am pretty sure we quote a line from My Best Friends Wedding every time we are together. I am not exaggerating. It’s a little weird, but not weirder than this:

Seriously, who would do this???? This is BEYOND obsessive. I am sure there are plenty of 12 year old girls out there with Beiber Fever and have his posters all over their bedrooms, but over 80 permanent tattoos of the same person? That is just freaky! If I was Julia I don’t know if I’d be more creeped out by the guy himself, or the fact that it looks like only 1 out of all those tattoos actually resembles her. I would probably write to the guy and tell him he should demand his money back from the obviously blind tattoo artist!

Is there an app for that??

A few months ago I had an idea for an app. I wrote to Apple and asked who I could talk to about it (so I could make royalties, be rich and just blog all day instead of work).
Well, Apple did not return my email, so I am not making royalties, I am definitely not rich and in case you didn’t notice, I don’t blog all day long.
I am sure every Tom, Dick and Harry has an idea for an app and I am sure Apple thinks they’ve covered them all. Well, to my knowledge (and lack of a Smart Phone to know for sure), they have yet to cover this one. I wanted to keep it a secret but since they obviously don’t plan on getting in touch with me, I suppose I can tell the world (or all 4 of you who read my blog daily) my idea.

My idea is....*drum roll please*......
An app that lets you know when you are using a word wrong or when a sentence doesn’t make sense. Spell check is great, but it still doesn’t fix all of the small, but important errors that can occur. My app idea popped back into my head yesterday as I was having an email conversation with a friend of mine. Now I admit, I am NOT a good speller whatsoever-- I would not be the blogger I am today without the help of the red squiggly line that appears to tell me I am making a goof—but this girl has got some pretty bad spelling/grammar habits and I think this app would help her.
We were discussing sleeping arrangements for an upcoming trip to a friends house and we were talking about who would sleep on the couch and who would sleep on the air mattress—here is a snippet of our conversation:

HER: We'll trade off on the coach- trust me, that coach is over 30 years old (it
was my parents first coach when they bought their first home before I was
born!) it should barely be sat on :)

ME: I don’t know why this word has come up before in our emails, but you have done this before...just LOOK at the way you spelled ‘couch’ ALL THREE TIMES in your paragraph. It’s not the coAch of a baseball team, it’s the coUch you sit on!

HER: Hahahahhhhhahahh!!!!! I am laughing OUT LOUD right now!!!!!! Couch...couch... Must remember how to spell couch. Couch. Couch. Couch.

To read more of her email faux pas, click here where she self admits her faults. I don’t what’s more funny; the way she has rambles on about the American money, or what her sister says to call her out on it! Classic!

Fourth of July Snack

Sorry for the lame title of this post - I couldn't think of anything creative.  Maybe one will come to me while I write.  If so, I will delete these three sentences.

As I was thinking of what to make for my Fourth of July snack to share, I really wanted to do something tasty AND festive this year.  I was talking about some ideas with a friend of mine and he mentioned red, white and blue Rice Krispies.  That was basically the extent of our conversation.  I wasn't sure what he meant by it, but the thought went through my head for a few days... hmm...I could make a pan of bars and use red and blue frosting to draw a flag on the top...I could make separate red and blue bars and have them out on a plate... but then the light bulb went on and I thought: I will layer them and shove a stick through them and add a cute topper!
After thinking my plan through, here's what I came up with.  (This is actually my first batch; I made another batch after some tweaking and the second batch tasted a lot better.  And unfortunately I didn't get some key pictures because my camera battery died!)

Take a simple recipe and divide it by three.
note: add a couple more marshmallows and 1/2 tbs more of butter and they will taste A LOT better:

Melt mallows and butter in pan on low to medium heat.  Mix in food coloring and add Krispies.

Although this photo shows the red food coloring in the pan, (photoshopped in for effect, as I forgot to take a picture of this step) I made the "white" part of the flag first to avoid any color transfer into the white stripe. Make sense?  Good.

Have three 8"x8" pans lined with parchment paper ready and waiting...

Make the rest of the colors and put into separate pans. (again, sorry for not capturing some of the key steps):

 Lift out each color, lay blue down first (although picture shows differently, I learned from my mistake on 2nd batch), remove parchment paper from bottom of white and blue, stack on top of blue:

Place another piece of parchment paper on top, and press layers firmly together.  

Although it's not shown here, I added a little drizzle of white Betty Crocker cookie icing (the kind in a pouch) and some red, white and blue sprinkles to the top for some extra fun.

Cut into squares and add a fun Fourth of July topper and you have yourself a festive snack!

Dog Days of Summer