My birthday is tomorrow, but my friends threw me a surprise theme birthday party on Saturday. It was a Super Mario Brothers party! Alyssa did a super job on the decorations, making a scene from the old NES game with pipes and question mark boxes. It rocked. Hopefully she’ll post some photos on her blog and you can see the beauty of it.

There were mini pizzas to make, veggies to munch on, mario party and super mario to play, and some tasty beverages to imbibe and get drunk on. Oh, and I had to fish money out of a pile of jello and I wasn’t allowed to use my hands. It was good jello, too. Good thing Billy put the money in saran wrap. Money is dirty. I think someone has pictures of that incident and may appear at a later date for you to scoff at. All in all, much fun! Yay party! Boo, being old.

PS – Maya really enjoyed the bee balloon that I got from Liz.

It’s a fairly recent discovery of mine that I loves me some catfish. Some fish is just too … fishy for me, but catfish isn’t one of them. The first time I tried to make it, it just stuck to the pan and fell apart and it wasn’t as satisifying all broken up into a bunch of pieces. This time though, it came out perfectly and I was excited. I even tried to make lemon rice for the first time. Usually when I have flavored rice, it’s from a box. The problem with that though is that usually the spices are too strong or it’s too salty. My lemon rice was awesome, if I do say so myself.

Lemon Rice
1 cup long grain/wild rice
1 T olive oil
1 T butter
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 garlic clove
1/2 can chicken broth
1 1/2 c water
few sprigs of fresh thyme
grated lemon rind of one lemon
little lemon juice

Heat up oil & melt the butter. Sautee the onion and garlic for about 2 minutes. Add rice and coat it in the oil & butter for about 3 minutes, until toasty. Add chicken broth and water (you may need to add slightly more, should cover the rice by about a few inches). Add fresh thyme. Heat to boiling, then drop it down to a simmer. Cook for about 20 minutes. Near the end of the cooking time (about 15 minutes or so), add the lemon rind. After cooking, add a little lemon juice, stir it up and enjoy!

Last night my mom convinced me to go to Sycuan Casino. She’s been on some kind of itch lately, always wanting to go to the casino. I told her, “why don’t you just use that money you’d spend at the casino and buy me some clothes instead?” She said, “You have a lot of clothes already!” and I said, “Well, it’d be better than you throwing your money away at the casino!” She was not convinced, obviously.

My stipulation for going to the casino is that I get to play bingo. The early matinees were already over, so we left later in the day and I went to the evening session. I haven’t ever played bingo at Sycuan by myself. But, since it was also the month of my birthday, I got a free birthday pack and I didn’t mind being their alone, though I did call Alyssa and leave a message asking her to come. Anyway, on a whim, I decided to play the G-Ball Jackpot, which I usually never do. You have to bingo on the specified number of draws (which was 56 last night – a pretty good amount, I thought). And … holy crap, I totally won it. I was just excited that I had won, as I have never won at Sycuan before (besides winning the door prizes – $100 two times and a gigantic stuffed bunny) but the gasps of the other players made me realize that, oh man, I had bingoed on the right number as well! I got a little high buzz from the experience and a bulging wallet. The jackpot was for $2000. I even had to sign a bunch of forms which was basically like, “I promise to tell the IRS and blahblahblah.” Stupid government. But anyway. What a nice little birthday present for myself! Yay! The end.

but the easiest way to let everyone know is that i got let go from my job. fired, let go, whatever. they didn’t feel my photoshop skills were good enough for their needs. i did struggle with it a little bit but i thought what i had done was good, but they felt differently. i do have photoshop experience, but i was never formally trained and when i worked on cutting out photos at my old job, they weren’t really picky about it as long as it looked good. here, the wanted all smooth edges and perfection and well.. i just couldn’t do it, i guess. they didn’t want to train anyone, they just wanted someone who was ready to do it and i didn’t fit the bill.

i think i’ll go play with maya and lie in bed for awhile.

It’s been a week since we got Maya and it’s been an adventure! Waking up in the middle of the night to take her out and dealing with accidents comes with the territory of course, but still hard to adjust to. But, she’s so cute you forgive her quickly. She was scared of our other dog, Rocky, at first but after a few days she warmed up to him and wanted to play with him. Of course, he’s so old that he doesn’t want to play and he just sniffs her while she runs around him. She seems to be settling in now though. She’s starting to come when she’s called, she hates getting a bath, she loves to have her tummy rubbed, she’s learning how to sit and she doesn’t quite like the leash yet. All in good time! More photos here, if you are interested!

In other news, I finished my foreign stamp magnets for the Sampler. After a few attempts I finally figured out the best way to do the borders. I tried using the double stick tape to do a beaded border and a metallic border but that didn’t really work. Then, I used a special glue for glitter and sprinkled glittle on, which also didn’t really work because the glue wasn’t straight. Then, lo and behold, I remembered that I have glitter glues! A ton of them, too. So easy to put on. Made such pretty borders. Yay. Off to Sacramento they go!

Welcome, little girl!

Maya came home with us today. We went down to pick her up and I played with some of her siblings. She’s probably the second smallest of the litter and just as cute as can be. She whined when we were driving her home, but hopefully she’ll get used to her new home soon enough. My mom’s friend told us that a lot of families really liked Maya and one family even told my mom’s friend to “tell the other family to trade” with them because they wanted Maya. Yeah, whatever. Anyway, isn’t she just the cutest little thing? There are more photos of her over here, if you are interested.