Costume Contest

And the winner is:

Mr. Wendell. Hey Hey Mr. Wendell.

He spent $10 on cigarettes and a 40 and won us a $200 3 -course dinner at an awesome restaurant.

His sign also got him a ton of free drinks. If you can't read it, it says "It's an Obamanation! Hungry, Homeless and can't afford a $10 drink. Please help get me drunk so I can stay warm!"

Friendship

A true friend is someone who accepts you for who you are - even if they don't approve.

A true friend is someone who will not only forgive you when you put your leg in your mouth, but help you pull it out.

A true friend will not only help you bury the body, but laugh with you while you dig.

GiveAway:

I love "good mail". I just got a package from Wanchai Ferry, Macaroni Grill & MyBlogSpark! Inside was a Wanchai Ferry and Macaroni Grill boxed dinner and a $25 Visa gift card!

When I opened the package, Mar Dub shrieked "Oh! It's the Yummy Chicken!"

We have obviously already tried the Wanchai Ferry Orange Chicken and it is delicious and easy to make. My only wish is that they had sent me two boxes, because one box is not nearly enough for my big eaters. Last time I made Orange Chicken I cooked 3 pounds of chicken and the darned kids ate it all.

Click here for a coupon for $1.50 off two boxed dinners.

I also received a box of Creamy Basil Parmesan Chicken & Pasta, and can't wait to try it. Alas, I need an extra 10 minutes to actually cook something instead of just pull it from the freezer which by the way is getting dangerously bare.

I think Big Chocolate and I may have a date night this weekend and try the Macaroni Grill Dinner. I will be sure and let you know how that goes.

The theme for the giveaway is Date Night. MyBlogSpark suggested we post pictures from our first date. LOL. We didn't go on an official "date" for almost a year after we had been "dating". Big Chocolate blew his entire dating budget for college taking my old roommate out to Olive Garden about 2 months before we started "dating", but that is a whole other post.

Thanks to MyBlogSpark, Wanchai Ferry and Macaroni Grill, MyBlogSpark will also be providing one lucky reader with a prize pack! The winner will receive:
1 Wanchai Ferry dry dinner kit
1 Macaroni Grill dry dinner kit
1 $25 Visa gift card that you can use to create a magical date night at home

To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment with your email address and I will email you after a winner is randomly selected on Wednesday, Nov. 3rd.

Wordless Wednesday

Not Me Monday - Rain Rain Go Away

We did not spend 7 hours at an SMU Football game Saturday to only see half of the game. There was not a 2 1/2 hour rain delay.

I did not inadvertently recreate the Saran Wrap scene from Booty Call with one of those cheapo rain ponchos. I did not seriously think a stranger was going to have to poke air holes in there for me after I got stuck.

After nearly dieing in said poncho, I did not think it would be funny to see if the same thing would happen to Big Chocolate. I did not seriously wonder if death by poncho kicked in the accidental death benefit on the life insurance. I did not chicken out and help him put his on because I love him.

Talking to Myself

Self: You need to get off your ass and get something done.

Self: But I don't wanna.

Self: I know, but this stuff isn't going to do itself.

Self: But I don't wanna.

Self: At least do something to get started. That's the hardest part.

Self: OK - I'll make a list of all the stuff I need to do.

Self: Good Job. Now lets get going on the first thing on the list.

Self: But I don't wanna.

Self: I know but you will never finish if you don't start.

Self: OK, but I need to add one thing to the list I forgot about.

Self: Just one thing and then you have to get something actually done.

Self: OK. I just added blog about nothing to the top of the list.

Self: What am I going to do with you?

Self: Help me blog... Duh...

Wordless Wednesday

In Which I Rant - About College Students

Let me preface this by saying that the students signed up to take my class have someone forking over about $4000 for the honor to take my 3000 level class.

1. If I have to explain why you multiply .2Y by 5 to turn it into Y more than once, economics is probably not the field of study to which you are best suited.

2. If you are so smart that the review lecture is unnecessary and you decide to leave early - turn in your quiz before you go. If you make it that far, make sure all of your answers are right. You see I never said I was giving all of the answers equal weight - I might have noticed that you missed that question and decided to weight it as 100% of the quiz grade - since I made sure that everyone who stayed had all of the right answers.

3. #2 would be especially important if despite your full academic scholarship, your parents are emailing me on a semi frequent basis checking in on your progress because they are so pissed off at your half-assed approach to higher education that they are threatening to make you come home because they don't want to pay your room and board for a 4 year party. Yeah I know holy run-on sentence. Grammar doesn't apply to rants.

4. Don't bitch when I am trying to hook the class up with an easy grade. Yes, you might not benefit from it because of some perceived injustice, but you have a 98 in the class. It will still be an A.

5. If the deadline to receive approval for your presentation is 2PM the day before, don't send me your idea at 2:30 and still expect full credit. If you had read the assignment sheet, you would know that you are now starting with a 75.

Not Me Monday - I'm not a procrastinator

I did not procrastinate all day Thursday despite the firm deadlines that Friday held for me. The result was not one giant Manic mess. This is not a list of everything that HAD to get done Friday.

• 2009 taxes
• 3 years P&L's for the business for some award thingy
• write quiz for class
• learn what the heck I was teaching for class
• meet 3 students before class
• make emergency phone calls
• file stuff at the court house
• mail certified mail (on a tax deadline day no less)
• have company over to watch the baseball game

All went well until my final stop at the courthouse. I was not racing around like a bat out of hell so that I could beat rush hour traffic home.

I am not too cheap to pay for parking at the garage. I did not use the excuse that I didn't have any cash despite Big Chocolate assuring me that they took plastic. I did not find great street parking and rush in to the back door of the courthouse. My cell phone did not set of the metal detector at security. I did not have to run it through by itself.

I did not run straight to the clerk's office and make my filing in under a minute. I did not race back to my car and get five blocks away from the courthouse and almost get on the highway when I realized I didn't have my cell phone. Shit. I did not leave it at security.

I did not say to hell with being cheap and park in the parking garage the second time around. I did not make it in and out of the courthouse with my phone this time in under two minutes.

In the less than two minutes I was at the courthouse I did not manage to lose my parking ticket. I did not say to hell with it and decide to pay the lost ticket fee just to get back on the road.

When I drove up to the cashier, she did not inform me that they were cash only. I did not curse my sweet loving husband for leading me astray. I did not have to back up a couple of hundred feet while other cars were trying to leave so that I could park and go back in through security one more time to the ATM. I did not make myself feel better by thinking about what a great blog post this would make.

I was not hit by as stroke of genius as I sat there. The cashier did not have to count $9 worth of pennies, nickels and dimes from my ashtray.

One of Those Days

I like to call this "Self-Portrait of an Ass". Hint - if you don't get it, look at the top of my head.

So today is officially going to be one of those days. So much to do and not nearly enough time to do it. Plus I have that sinking feeling like the shit is going to hit the fan.

It's sad but the highlight of my day is probably going to be that I was able to find all of the stuff I need to do our taxes shoved in the back of the crap drawer. I was so forward thinking when I put it there. Seriously what are the odds that I would have put every W-2, 1099 and deduction document in the same drawer. I guess I should be happy that I have a day and a half before my extension runs out.

Instead of my cup, my sink runneth over - with dirty dishes. We just haven't been home enough to do shit about it. I suppose I could be loading the dishwasher now instead of blogging, but I have towels in the dryer now and find that multi-tasking just leads to a sloppy work product IMO.

My best friend is coming in from out of town, and while I have informed her my house needs to be burnt to the ground and rebuilt and that I don't clean for "friends", my husband is going to insist on having the place spotless. This is just going to make me feel guilty for inviting someone over and causing him to have to do so much work. It's not actually going to cause me to clean though.

On the bright side I already have dinner out of the freezer - all I have to do tonight is throw it in the oven and make noodles. If I had to lay odds on it, the kids will get to the food first and not leave anything for us to eat. That has been hapening alot lately. All this to say I will have cooked dinner and been prepared and still not get credit for cooking tonight. Arrgh.

I think I may just go back to bed and not wake up until Saturday.

Wordless Wednesday - You might have a drinking problem if...

7th Grade Football

C-Dub played in his 5th football game of his life yesterday. They played their rivals and lets just say even with their 16 year-old quarter back, they are no longer undefeated. Apparently the other team had a couple of 17 year-olds playing for them.

Despite never having played a down of football in his life C-Dub not only made the A Team, but is a starter. He makes steady improvement in his play each week.

He has stellar stats including 1 penalty (the first play of the first game, 0 receptions, 1 incident of being burned for a touchdown, 0 daisies picked and only one fumble - his mouth guard. It was recovered by his oh so awesome parents though.

Which leads me to my next comment about middle school football. During the all important mouth guard recovery we came across six more. How do six kids lose their mouth guards?

This is six more that we had to pick up with our hands and examine to see if they were his $40 custom molded because he has braces. Six more that were the exact same black plastic color that my son chose when he could have picked any color in the rainbow because I paid $40 for the damn thing and it was custom.

There was serious discussion of bringing all six of the mouth guards home for him to test out, but that would have just been cruel.

And for a funny, I like to call this one "Beam me down, Water Boy".

Swag Bucks meets Groupon oh my.

Swagbucks and Groupon sitting in a tree, K I S S I N G. First comes love, then comes marriage. Then comes a Swag-Groupie in a baby carriage.

If you don't know how much I love Swagbucks, you haven't ever read my blog before. If you have never used Groupon, you don't know what you are missing. If you would like to earn swagbucks for your groupon purchases, keep reading.

If you go to Swagbucks special offers section and select TrialPay's Local Deals, it will have a link that will give you 160 swagbucks for taking advantage of that day's Groupon.

I got 160 Swagbucks for buying a $10 gift certificate to Pacuigo for $5 Sunday and another 160 Swagbucks for spending $10 on a $25 gift certificate to Banana Leaf.

I am in Value Whore heaven!

Freezer Cooking Gone Wild

I have put up 8 meals in the freezer in the last two days. That would be 16 meals for a "normal" family, but my kids can eat! I cooked 3 pounds of orange chicken last week and they ate it all. All as in Big Chocolate had to go to Chic-fil-A for a sandwich because they ate all of it and packed the rest for lunch.

As of right now, I have 2 trays of baked ziti, 2 trays of bacon wrapped chicken with cream cheese filling, 2 trays of Paula Deen's beef stew and two gallon bags of spaghetti sauce with sliced Italian sausage.

I cheated and got a 6 pound can of spaghetti sauce from costco, so the spaghetti sauce just required cooking the sausage and throwing a handfull of itallian seasoning in the zip lock.

The ziti was easy too. I used the same sauce and mixed some ricotta with garlic salt and itallian seasoning, dumped in a bag of shredded mozzerella and poured the sauce on top.

The bacon wrapped chicken was messy but fun. I took a 2.5 pound bag of frozen chicken strips and smeared half of them with a mixture of cream cheese, garlic and italian seasoning. Then you put another frozen chicken strip on top and wrap it with bacon. I can't wait to try these.

The stew was made Sunday and definately the most labor intensive project. That was because I am too damn cheap to buy stew meat though. Tom Thumb had chuck roasts b1g1 and they had two in the old meat bin for 30% off. What's even better is the computer takes off the 100% value when it gives you your second one free. I got 8 pounds of roast for $6 or $7.

I'm trying to get up the energy to cut and bake 10 pounds of roasted red potatoes to go with the stew and just to have. I promised C-Dub we would make a few loaves of banana bread too.

I love days off from school. Only thing the kids and I had going today was early morning football practice for C-Dub. Though I'm sure we have forgotten something that I will be totally mortified we forgot. For now I am just enjoying it though.

This post is linked up at Life as Mom.

Not Me Monday - The Tea Party Edition

My girls did not decide to have a tea party at 11pm last night. The theme was not Mad Hatter.

It was also not Princess in the Pea meets structural engineering project.

Most importantly, this is not Mars in front of the Christmas tree that still hasn't been taken down.

As an aside my child is not the spawn of the devil - despite what her brother might have to say on the matter.

A Typical Sunday

Just a typical Sunday here at Casa de Half-Assed. I started off a tad bit hung over from the football game last night and then dropped the kids off at church to volunteer with the Kinder kids during first service. I went grocery shopping while they were there and then met back up with them for "Big Church".

Now I'm cooking a triple batch of Paula Deen's Beef Stew for the freezer and yelling and cussing at the kids because they are doing a completely half assed job cleaning. Domestic Bliss I tell you.