Made barbecue chicken last night for dinner for Joe and I and I *thought*I washed the pan correctly but when I put some Superpretzels in there for a snack it started to smell like barbecue. It tasted a little like barbecue too!

If you ever move away from home and visit only like 3 times a year is there a local restaurant that you absolutely must indulge yourself in?

This weekend I went back to northwestern indiana and I just had to go to the best hamburger/hotdog place called "Madvek's". It's located on Calumet Avenue in Hammond, IN. I googled the restaurant and found better blog entries than mine. Here is an excellent forum post of a toursit's account of the excellent food.



I just absolutely love there loose cheese burgers



As you can tell I *borrowed* those photos to place in my blog.. we all do it..

The only pet peeve is that they are closed on Sundays and most of the time I would make my visit home on a Sunday. I have such fond memories of the place. I'd drive there to get lunch for my family a few times.. or dinner. They have such good cheese burgers and other foods!

Going to take two short *fun* courses at the COD, college of dupage, to get my mind of depressing things

4 weeks
COOKING--Basic Skills

BASIC SKILLS FOR THE BEGINNING COOK- Hone basic cooking skills and prepare simple recipes from soup to dessert, that are easy yet elegant, tasty yet nutritious. Practice basic cooking methods of broiling, sauteing, stir-frying and steaming; chopping, cutting, mixing and folding; and using seasonings.

2 weeks
COOKING--Cuts of Meat

HOW TO BUY AND COOK MEAT- Avoid standing at the meat counter. Quality, cost, cooking process and nutritive value are a few considerations when purchasing meat (beef, pork, lamb). Learn the different meat cuts and prepare related recipes. Guide to Identifying Meat Cuts included.

Two Graduation Parties, Two Weekends in a Roll.

I'm glad to be done. I'm glad that I did these. It is definately something to remember for many years to come. I want to thank my parents for hosting the party last week and helping setup/cleanup the party this week. I also want to thank my friend Dot k_diddy and some of my coworkers, who probably don't read this journal, for helping setup/clean up.

It has been a busy weekend and busy day for me. I've had to balance a lot this weekend and today I interviewed the realtors. My head hurt like hell all today from lack of sleep and umm *cough*. I was up all night having stomach problems from the greasy chicken. You'd think I learn my lesson from last week. Did I? No... I only had two plates of food.. but I think the greasy chicken and beer didn't do well in my stomach. Note to self, don't eat greasy food and beer after 5 pm.

I had my dairy queen cake :) !! bounce bounce !

I loved the sandwiches from jewel, well at least the wraps. I'd definately order the wraps again. That might be a thought for a small house warming party and much smaller food wise. We had enough food to feed 20-25 people. Did I expect 20 people? NO. Did I expect 15 people? Maybe. Including myself I think there was only a total of 11 people who showed up to my party on sunday which was ok. I guess this means that I need to make more friends.. yep. :)

This weekend, specially on Sunday, Joe and I drove to downtown Glen Ellyn mainstreet to attend the taste of glen ellyn and I specifically wanted to see the Irish dancers and we did. But before that we shopped and walked around and eventually reparked my car.



It is a rarety that I find Art.. that really appeals to me.. sticks out.. and screams BUY ME!

I bought this for $35 and it is a nice tile.. and could be placed on a kitchen floor, but I thought it was too nice and I am hanging it up on my kitchen wall above the cat's food and drink area.



We had ate some famous Nathan's hot dogs before we left so Joe protested when I wanted to buy some grilled barbecure chicken. He ended up getting some cotton-candy flavored dip n dots which I thought were rather tasteless, and I got a strawberry-banana smoothie made with fresh strawberries. Yumm. But I really wanted to taste the Chicken.. after all it is a taste.. and you go to festivals to eat!

We enjoyed watching the Trinity Irish Dancers and I kept fantasizing how cool it must be for those girls to do that (not to mention expensive) and how I want my future baby girl to do dance like I did.

• Billions of 17-year cicadas about to hatch in Midwest
• Birds, squirrels, dogs love the high-protein critters
• 1.5 million cicadas per acre will crowd onto trees
• Male's shrill call can reach 90 decibels, similar to blender

The cicadas are coming.

There is a lot of popularity of this bug lately. I walked down the streets of Glen Ellyn and store windows had cicada bugs on there. Cold Stone even came out with a cicada ice cream flavor. It says it is supposed to be crunchy :)

My ears are going to hurt. I remember them from 17 years ago, but I thought it had spread over a few years. It was so loud and annoying. I was about 9 yrs old then.

yeah me, i took all my medicines and a vitamin.
I'm thinking of going to bed soon and hopefully my work pager doesn't wake me up again like it did at 2am

I've got a lot to do!

School

I've got my final project/exam due on Monday at 6pm.
I am done with the first problem except I need to write up a report/summary/solution
Then I've got one more problem to do.
Got to pay my tuition and inquire on when I'll get my diploma in the mail.
Hopefully Joe will be able to drive with me into the city on Monday afternoon. All we got to do is drop of my exam and maybe will go get some chinese, maybe take the train into downtown, etc..

Work

I've been working like 12-16 hr days and weird hours this past week. It's been interfering with my progress on getting my final done for school but work is my number one priority. I've got to iron my outfits!

IEEE
Got a meeting tuesday
got a meeting wednesday

I want to get drunk something after wednesday night. It will be after finals and I won't be on duty. I need release!!!

Or maybe I should go to casino and blow like $100 and get a release that way too... I only do that like twice a year.

I'm feeling unusually well today. My self-esteem seems to be a little more radiant than usual and my mood face just turned from gloom to SMILEY. Happy and Nice Katie is here.

It's Good To Be Alive - Got the countdown mix masters stuck in my head. I'd love to disco if I only knew how to and not to embarass myself. I once saw a picture of my dad with sideburns in a white disco 70's outfit and thought that was wild! I'd love to post it if he'd send me it hehe

Then I've been bouncing to T'Pau's Heart and Soul song repeatedly while cleaning the kitchen and then I danced with my cats to Vitamin C's SMILE song which was played multiple times. Both my cats loved it. They got to dance and bounce and purr excitedly. My laundry got put away and my bed got made.

My apartment is to my normal standard for now. I made a late dinner (8 pm ish) of tacos! Then I played my Sims2 game for about an hour

Let me tell you about my Sims2 family -

The Pleasant Family

Well in the original game there was a family called the Pleasant family living in Pleasantville and as pleasant as it may sound, they were an odd bunch with flaws that threatened the family bonds. The two teenage sisters Angela and Lilith fought all the time. Parents Daniel and Mary-Sue were the tightest couple of old folks in love, however Daniel's secret life aspirations of romance and playboy once tore them apart.. briefly. Mrs Pleasant laughed loudly and heartedly at the two and decided to pursue her secret aspiration - hitting her husband and family up style. She wanted luxurious paintings, sculptures, and more and more expensive items in her house. Her desire for money was running short.





Well Angela and Lilith the two daughters grew up and they hatred of each other grew stronger. Lilith became friends with this easy-going friendly guy named Tutrle. Turtle lived with a bunch of other European guys but that didn't scare Lillith. She wanted to hang with him more and he asked her to move in with him and his buds. Lilith took the opportunity to move the heck out of the house but Angela was accidently moved with her. So Lilith and Angela found themselves at the doorsteps of the Entourage family (Turtle's bachelor pad) with suitcase in hand. Turtle's house was not a house, but a Bevery Hills 4 star mansion. Turtle, having two million in the bank, made them both instantly rich. See, in the sim world, if you move in a with a rich sim, you get part of their fortune. Well folks, Angela did just that. She moved back into the Pleasant house and brought with her about 200,000 simoleans of fortunate and left her sister at Hollywood. Her mother was very proud of her accomplishment, but her father dearly missed his other daughter Lilith, fortunately, he was the only one.

With Lilith out of the house and the family once again in peace and happiness, Angela looked towards her future. She got a job in the athletic track, following in her father's footsteps while kindling a friendship rom her teenage years with a nice guy named Joe Broke. Joe came from a broken family and had to support himself on a minimum wage job while attending high school and living alone. His mother died of the worst kind of disaterous death.. sickness and negative aspiration. She died a slow and painful death. Angela supported Joe throughout the whole ordeal and visited him pretty much everyday. She was his best friend and they dated and went steady. Nothing else mattered to Joe but Angela. It was no surprise that when they became of age, Joe popped the very important question and Angela excitingly accepted. Since Joe had no family of his own (immediate family), he decided to move in with Angela.

The Pleasant family flourished. Joe continue to pursue his career in the medicine track. He worked his way up from orderly, to intern, to general practioner, and finally up to surgeon. Angela's still working her way up the athletic career but had to take some time away from work for family. Angela and Joe gave birth to Peter and they loved him dearly. Joe, with the aspiration of family bliss, could not wait for another child, and they adopted a boy named Robi while Angela was pregnant with Charming. After Charming was born Joe desired 20 children and Angela refused to birth any more. That was the end of the child rearing.

Mary-Sue pleasant or "grandma" died not long after Peter was born and grown into a toddler. Peter was best friends with his grandma and cried very much after her death. Mary-Sue's life aspirations were filled and she died a happy woman in platimum state of aspiration. The Grim Reaper greeted her with hula dancers and a party drink. Her tombstone was golden and it is in its special spot of the Pleasant property with a flowerbed, a reflection pond, and a chair to view and mourn the tombstone.





After his wife died, Daniel decided to further pursue his romantic intentions with multiple sims (as an elder no less). He made it out with Brandi, Lauren- the french maid, Andrea, and another girl whome I forgot now! Before he dies he wants to wooho with at least 5 different Sims and I'm sure that will like change to 10 once he reaches that goal. He's only got a few days of his golden years left. He's got his eyes on Emily and the soccer mom he's seen picking up the kids playing around Charming.




Robi and Peter grew into teenagers. They're both intent on getting their first kiss and they've been eyeing the same girl Meadow which may present a problem. The apple didn't fall too far from the tree in regards to taking after his grandfather. He's a lover boy at heart. Peter takes after his mom, and is actually best friends with her. He's a social butterfly with the primary objective of making as many friends and best friends as possible.

Angela did something naughty today for the first time in her marriage she cheated on her husband Joe while he was at work with that european stud E Entourage. They've become best friends in the past few days and Angela took a bold step of stealing a kiss and it lead to more than she bargained for...

What will happen to the Pleasant family? Will Daniel achieve his lifelong fantasy of whooing 5 different Sims and dying in a state of platinum aspiration only to be bured next to his wife Mary-Sue? Will Angela ever see E again and will she get caught in the act and ruin her long marriage to Joe? Will Joe be able to reach the top of his career before he becomes an elder? What drama will transpire between the two teenage boys Robi and Peter who adore the same girl, and what will their fate be and will young Charming live up to his parent's expectations of dazzling success???

Gotta play some more...

Well this weekend, I don't think a lot got accomplsihed except sleeping. I managed to clean the apartment, for a few days, feed the cats, do the laundry, do the dishes, and do some ironing. Saturday morning I made the mistake of getting a car wash. It was close to the IIT Rice Campus in Wheaton and the Saturday dupage engineer's expo. I was supposed to help at a booth for power engineering but the person running the actual display didn't show up. I ended up hanging out at the IEEE booth and chatting with career legends. It's amazing. I really wish they wouldn't give me that much attention, its like they haven't seen a female engineer, ever, which may actually be the case... anyways.. one of the guys was around when there was vacuum tubes for all the switches used and it retired in like 1990. Wow. I was born in like 1981... they can go on and on like grandpa simpson..(joking) i didn't want to look rude..but I was going to leave after 30 minutes of nothing to do there. Our booth didn't have any big hands on activies for kids so why would they want to stick around there? Oh there was an old 1952 vintage ham radio with its parts all exposed. That technology is outdated! Oh yes, most of the exhbits at the booth was geared in communications engineering, the topic I like least and know nothing!!! Now if there were power systems exhibits them I could have been more *enthused*.

That Saturday night the ice storm raged down badly on Chicagoland I stayed warm and cozy indoors. The lights flickered and I knew there was a power line distrubance. I thought of logging in to work using my work laptop to see what was going on, but didn't. Fortunately the pager didn't go off. I am glad not to be working Storm Duty anymore and risking my life in driving far away in severe weather to sit around to do mostly nothing and getting paid .. nothing.

Dad called me.

Sunday I ate too much. I made the mistake of buying cadburry eggs 3 sets of 4 for $5 at SuperTarget. I already ate 2 cartons since last Sunday. OINK!!!!

I think I just realized my problem. I buy too much food and treats. I buy too much food that is packaged and not fresh. I need to stop buying the crap that is on sale and buying fresh food. I usually buy the packaged foods in the store that are on sale, stock up, and 1 month later actually eat the product, except for pizza.. that usually goes fast. This is how I go grocery shopping. I look at the price.. if it is reasonable, I can buy that. Like meat for example. Most meat I do not buy at the grocery store because it is like $6-10 and I am only cooking for 1 person. I'm not a good cook when it comes to cooking meats like steak, but I do like ham and turkey. I sometimes buy porkchops, which cost $5-6 and then cook them for Joe. this week I am going to be making the prkchops for myself and having 1 chop for dinner each night.

I bought a few items this weekend, like a new dance pad for my DDR games, a rectifier for my personal laptop, groceries, and some junk at SuperTarget.

I feel like playing some more DDR, but bed time is approaching.

Where did my weekend go?