It's My Birthday!

Today is my birthday and I could not feel more loved. My facebook wall has been blowing up all day with everyone wishing me well. My phone has been getting texts all day long with birthday wishes. I've been getting mail all week long from my family. My wonderful amazing boyfriend sent me flowers at work . My co-workers took me out for a wonderful lunch and decorated my desk with balloons . Tonight my boyfriend is taking me out to dinner, and says he has more birthday surprises in store, which I cannot wait for. I am so happy and thank you everyone for making me feel extra-special on my special day!

Thanksgiving Recap

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun! I was in Cleveland visiting the family, my sisters came into town from Chicago, my cousins came from Seattle and Phoenix. We did a lot of eating, drinking, sitting around, playing on our iPhones, and relaxing.

My sister and I with our cousin's babies. Am I a natural or what.

Babies playing ball with each other

Isn't she adorable!

Great Lakes Beer

I can't believe I almost forgot to mention that I saw Harry Potter with my cousins! It was amazing, left off right at the moment where I am hooked and can't wait to see the last one. Anyone know when it's coming out?

This Just In

I'm back and I've got some news about The Real Housewives. Kim Zolciak, who is pregnant from NFL player Kroy Biermann, reportedly gets $30,000 from her ex-husband (Arianna's father) Daniel Toce, whom she was married to for only 3 years. Not a bad deal if you ask me. If she marries Kroy, then she looses her child support money. Also, here are pictures of Kim smoking while 3 months pregnant.


The Manzo brothers, Chris and Albie, from The Real Housewives of New Jersey, are getting their own show. They've moved out Caroline's Casa and into their own place in Hoboken, NJ.

Kyle Richards and her über hot husband Mauricio are selling their pad. Sheree also has her pad on the market. Lisa Vanderpump's home is also for sale, listed at $29 million by Mauricio. Speaking of Mauricio, one of the Grammer's LA homes is on the market (listed at $18.9 million), and despite Camille's accusations that Mauricio will no longer work with them, he is indeed the realtor. To see this house, and others that Mauricio has listed, check out this site: http://laluxuryestates.com/261-Baroda-Drive-a181078.html

Lastly, Bethenny's show will premiere it's season 2 in February. It's now called Bethenny Ever After. She also reportedly made $15 million last year. Since Bethenny received her own show last year, Jill Zarin, Danielle Staub, Teresa Giudice, Gretchen Rossi and DeShawn Snow have all asked Bravo for their own show, and all have been turned down.

Planes & Turkeys

Tonight I'm packing because tomorrow afternoon I'm off to Cleveland for Thanksgiving. Can't wait to see the family and eat lots of turkey, and celebrate my birthday upon my return. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Babies and Nintendo

Friday night the boyfriend and I went to see a friend who just had a baby. She was about a month old, and so tiny and adorable. If you know me, it's no secret that I *love* babies, so I was super excited to see her. She was such a good baby too, no crying or fussing.

Saturday night, my friend Julie (of famed "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly") invited us over to have an old school Nintendo and wine party. It was so much fun! I think Nintendo peaked with original Nintendo, and it's been down hill ever since. Sure, now you can do all these fancy crazy things on video games and they look so real that it takes you a minute to figure out that it's just a video game, but original Nintendo was and always will be the best. We played Super Mario Brothers 1 and 3, and a bit of Duck Hunt too.

We couldn't get the game to sit in the slot properly, so we had to shover another game in there to hold it down. Remember when you used to have to blow in the games to get them to work. How far we've come!



Firepower is awesome! Look at those amazing 2D graphics.


The boyfriend playing Super Marios Bros. See how happy Nintendo makes him.


Duck Hunt!

This Just In

Sonja Morgan has become the latest in a long line of Real Housewives to file for bankruptcy. According an article in Gawker, she listed about $13 million in assets and $19 million in debt. It also stated that part of her debt comes from a movie deal she had going with John Travolta. Apparently, she couldn't "meet his demands" and he backed out, leaving her $7 million in debt. They are unsure where her other $12 million in debts came from.

Also, according to a celebrity website called "celebritynetworth" here is the net worth of the different housewives:

New York
Bethenny: $14 million
Ramona: $18 million
Kelly: $15 million
Jill: $35 million
LuAnn: $2 million
Alex: $400,000

(also, it should be noted that only Bethenny and Alex made their own money, the rest married into money).

New Jersey
Danielle: $6 million
Caroline: $8 million
Dina: $4.5 million
Teresa: -$11 million
Jacqueline: $5 million
Kim G: $20 million

Beverly Hills
Kim: $20 million
Kyle: $20 million
Lisa: $65 million
Camille: $5 million
Adrienne: $300 million
Taylor: $10 million

(guess who's higher in the pecking order now Camille, oh kharma!)

DC
Michaela: $100,000
Mary: $5 million
Lynda: $10 million
Cat: $4 million
Stacie: $18 million

Atlanta
NeNe: $3.5 million
Lisa: $100,000
Kandi: $35 million
Phaedra: $12 million
Sheree: $50,000
Kim: $1.5 million
Cynthia: $8 million

(guess that explains why Sheree wants a rich man so badly)

Orange County
Vicki: $7 million
Tamra: $10,000
Gretchen: $3 million
Alexis: $3.5 million
Jeana: $750,000

(note that Lynne, Jo, Quinn, Tammy, and Lauri were all not listed on the site)

To check out how much your favorite celebrity is really worth, go to http://www.celebritynetworth.com/

Favorite Thanksgiving Memory

Today at our Thanksgiving Potluck, we had to tell a story of our favorite Thanksgiving memory, so I thought I would share it with you all:

About 5 years ago, we had Thanksgiving at our house. My mom had the idea to make the tablecloth be out of paper, so everyone could draw on it. It was a creative idea, so we went with it. My Grandma had one too many martinis (she usually has 2 a day, so that's saying a lot) and she was drawing Christmas trees and singing Christmas carols down on her end of the table. We had to keep reminding her that it was Thanksgiving and that she had the holiday wrong.

Can't wait for the shenanigans this year. Can you believe Thanksgivings is ONE WEEK AWAY!

About Time

This Just In

Amber Portwood from MTV's Teen Mom is facing domestic violence charges. She is charged with one misdemeanor count of domestic battery and two felony counts as the violence was committed in the presence of a child. I'm glad to learn that domestic violence (a misdemeanor) committed in front of your child is upgraded to a felony. If convicted, she faces up to 3 years in jail and fines up to $10,000.

You may remember some recent episodes of Teen Mom in which Amber shoved Gary against a wall, slapped him and choked him; slapped him 5 times and punched him; and when she slapped him and punched him repeatedly and pushed him down the stairs.

Such an excellent role model for her daughter Leah.

A Walk Down Memory Lane

Today, while being extremely productive at work, I found this website which discusses the evolution of facebook. Here's a little walk down memory lane:

- Remember when the only pictures on facebook were your profile picture
- Remember when you had to go to the thefacebook.com to get to facebook
- Remember when you had to have an .edu email to be on facebook
- Remember when they opened it up to high school students as well
- Remember when it used to list on there "member since"
- Remember when facebook used to list out the schools that your friends went to
- Remember when they used to have the connections, so you could see who someone was friends with
- Remember before facebook had the news feed feature
- Remember before facebook had chat (fyi, i have never used the chat before, i think it's dumb and gchat is WAY better)
- Remember when facebook to look like this:



Also, just for fun, remember when google used to look like this:


Remember when youtube looked like this:


Remember when craigslist looked like this:


And remember when Wikipedia looked like this:


Ah, how far we've come! For more information, check out http://guestofaguest.com/social-media/internet-nostalgia-what-facebook-and-other-sites-used-to-look-like/

Cooking Recap and This Just In

The cooking adventure last night went fairly well. I made the mac and cheese with chicken and the coconut chicken strips. The mac and cheese was delicious, and I decided to take my friends advice and bread the chicken with rosemary, and pan fry it. Then i cut it up and put it in the mac and cheese, but there was way more mac and cheese than chicken. The coconut chicken strips were tasty, and super duper easy. I made a dipping sauce to go with it, which was key.

I was supposed to also make the soup, but forgot to get the potatoes for it, which is the key ingredient. Oops. Postponed to later this week.

Lunch was also a success, with a ham/salami/pepperoni sandwich, gigantic grapes, and individual-sized Smartfood White Cheddar popcorn. Yum.

Tomorrow is our company's Thanksgiving Potluck which I helped plan (I'm on the Social Committee), so that should be fun and filling. And tonight is my second official non-work related outing with work friends.

In random celebrity news, Eva Longoria and Tony Parker are getting divorced. Not sure if I should be sad about this, but I never really saw them as a good fit in the first place.

Countdown

Countdown to important upcoming events:

- Thanksgiving Break: 8 days
- My Birthday: 14 days
- Christmas Break: 37 days
- New Years: 45 days

Healthy (Somewhat) Cooking

In my quest to eat healthier, and thanks to my sister letting me borrow the car, I'm off to the grocery store tonight! I don't know what it is but I'm bad at grocery shopping. I either come home and feel like I have nothing to eat, or I buy all this food and then throw away half of it before I have a chance to eat it. So I spent the past hour at work trying to come up with food to make this week and a grocery list. Here is what is on my dinner list for the week:

- Macaroni and Cheese with Chicken (healthy edition)
- Coconut Chicken Strips (trying a new recipe)
- Steak and Baked Potato with Asparagus (my classic go-to)
- Baked Potato Soup (also a new recipe)
- Chicken and Cheese Enchilada (haven't made this in years)

For lunches I plan on having either leftovers from dinner, salami and ham sandwiches, or going out to eat. Hope this goes well, updates to follow.

Diet Fail

After eating out almost every meal last week, I'm feeling fat and bloated. I decided to eat healthy today. Co-worker brought in bagels for the Patriots win last night, so I ditched the usual breakfast of instant oatmeal for a delicious Poppy Seed bagel with cream cheese. Then for lunch my co-worker and I decided to get salads from Cosi, to be healthy. I finished eating lunch approximately 2 hours ago, and I am now starving. Trying hard to resist the office candy bowl. Sigh, Mondays.

Tip of the Day

Looking for a gift for a special someone, especially someone who has it all - you should get them the Senz Umbrella. They boldly bill it "the best umbrella in the world".


The unusual shape (shorter in the front and wider on the sides, with an extended "tail" in the back), provides better coverage for couples sharing, and can withstand winds of up to 100km/hr. All this for the low, low price of only $78.

For more information click here.

TGIF

Cannot wait for the weekend to start! Tonight I'm off to celebrate my friend's homecoming from being away for 6 weeks in a foreign country. Tomorrow I'm out with the girls for a Bachelorette party, and Sunday watching the Arsenal game (go Arsenal)! In the meantime, I'm counting down the minutes until I can leave work for the day....

Almost the Weekend

When I got home yesterday, I had a furry little friend chilling in my bed. What a cutie!


Speaking of furry friends, the other morning I was awoken to scurrying sounds by the window. It sounded like an animal was burrowing his way into my room, but it turns out it was just some squirrels climbing on my window screen.

Massive Reorganization

I decided that I had too much stuff and I needed to reorganize all the stuff that I do have. So I hit up the Container Store and bought a bunch of storage containers that all arrived yesterday.
I also bought a over the door shoe rack (that is me assembling it), and thanks to the help of my wonderful (and patient) boyfriend, it is now assembled and hanging over one of my closet doors. The closet doors were too short for the full length of the shoe rack, so we trimmed a bit of it off, which was surprisingly easier than I thought. Now I just need to decide what to get rid off...


When I started assembling the shoe rack, I saw that I would need a hammer, so I asked my roommate when she got home if she had one that I could borrow. She said she didn't have one, but knew where one was. This is what she gave to me to use:

As the boyfriend so eloquently put it, "I didn't know a hammer could be girly". In case you can't see the picture very well, the top of the hammer is covered in a floral print, and it's hard to tell from the picture but the hammer is miniature sized. But it did get the job done, so I guess it did serve it's purpose, even if it is "pretty".

Just What Those Needed

Have you ever been eating a Skittles and wondering what they were missing? Did you ever think "these Skittles would be so much better with some sugar on them!" Well you are in lucky because the geniuses over at the Wrigley Company (I had to look that up, had no idea they made Skittles), did that just that. Introducing new Skittles Fizzl'd Furits.

They taste similar to sour Skittles, but with more of a rotting your teeth of feeling. Also, the traditional Skittles flavors are replaced by Berry Punch, Melon Berry, Raspberry, Strawberry, and Wild Cherry.

On a side tangent, what exactly is the difference between Cherry and Wild Cherry? Is this all just a marketing ploy to make it seem cooler than it is?

Personally, I didn't see anything wrong with the original Skittles and would prefer those any day to these sugar-coated "fizzle in your mouth" candies.

Trick Play

So sneaky - check out this video of the slowest and sneakiest quarter back sneak by middle schoolers

Complaint of the Day

Today I checked my balance at Capital One Bank online and it read $0. Um, what! I recently closed out a CD I had with them, and had the money rolled over to my checking account. I planned on taking the money out of the checking account and putting it into my new bank (which has a 4.1% interest rate!) which is much more conveniently located than the Capital One Bank.

I called customer service and they said the amount had been taken out at the teller and was auto-signed. They told me to come into the bank to file a fraud claim. I asked my boss if I could head down to the bank and he said no problem. I talked to the manager at the bank who told me that she thought it was just an internal error, and that they could send me a cashier's check, which will be here by the end of the week.

That's all great (especially since I didn't want to bank with them any more anyways), but why did they take out all my money? And why didn't they think it was that big of a deal. Oh well, at least I'll have my money back soon, and I never have to deal with Capital One Bank again.

This is my latest in a long series of issues with Capital One. I opened my account under Chevy Chase Bank, and ever since they were bought out by Capital One, everything has gone downhill. I would definitely think twice about opening (or maintaining) an account with them.

Goooo Caps

I'm off to the Caps tonight after work...with a friend from work. I love saying that. I've been at my new job since April (6 months now), and I feel like I'm finally getting in with them. I no longer have to feel weird about asking people to go out to lunch, or even worse - stressing that I had no lunch plans at all. But tonight is my first official non-work related social outing with someone from the office. Hope it goes well, and GO CAPS!

Thursday Tip

Want to re-decorate? Need a gift for someone special? Looking for some original art work? You are in luck because I am selling some of my art work (in an attempt to de-clutter my life aka my room). Email me at me.meeshell @ gmail dot com and here is the link to the paintings available.

All About Meeshell

My blog has gotten visitors from:

- United Kingdom
- South Korea
- Sweden
- Norway
- Mexico

I've been getting some Google search hits (although they are for boring topics including "salahi white house invitation" and "i got new glasses"), but still, very exciting!

Besides the blog news, nothing new or exciting to report, but I bought my ticket home for Christmas this morning, and it was quite the fiasco. I found a semi-reasonably priced ticket, entered in all my information, and after I hit "purchase" American Airlines informed me that the price went up by $40. What! I put that ticket on hold and then scrambled to try and find something cheaper. After many frustrating searches, I gave up and bought the ticket on hold. Sigh. At least Christmas Break will be fun and relaxing and (hopefully) less stressful than buying the ticket home.

Did I also mention after spending Christmas with my family, I'm heading down to the boyfriends to meet his family. I've never been invited home before by a boyfriend, and especially not for the Holidays. I'm very excited and nervous, but think it will be a great time. If you have any gift ideas and/or tips let me know!

Big (And Expensive) Oops

I just bought a brand new iPhone 4 on Thursday evening. Saturday evening I left my phone in a cab. Oops. The phone has not been recovered. Luckily I bought the phone on my American Express Blue card, and they refunded me the full purchase amount. Unluckily the phone costs $599 to replace (original purchase was $199). After work tonight, I'm going to the Apple Store to buy a replacement phone. I'm hoping that they will super nice to me and give me lots of discounts. If not, I'm going to turn on the tears and hope that works (they will most likely come regardless). Also, you should get MobileMe (Apple already offered to waive the fee for me when I purchase my new phone) because if I had purchased MobileMe originally, they could have (potentially) recovered my phone for me. You live and learn I guess. Just wish my lessons didn't come with a $599 price tag.