Chocolate is always a good thing

This week is our 6 month anniversary. I don’t think we’re really doing anything since Michael’s on night shift. I’m hosting party game night at my house on Friday, and then Saturday afternoon I’m having 9 people over for a chocolate party. Usually the No Kidding group has an annual Chocolate Party in Feb around Valentines. This year everyone forgot about it and no one wanted to deal with it. Well, since I’m a whore for chocolate, I figured I’d have a small party at my house just for our main No Kidding friends. I was so not in the mood to host a big shindig since I just did the Holiday Party in December. I figured if someone felt everyone should be invited, they could host it themselves. At the usual No Kidding party some people bring homemade items and some people bring store bought items. As this was a small private group, I made the rule that anything brought had to be homemade. Of course, box brownies are acceptable since you’re still actually baking. I just didn’t want to see a box of store bought cookies or something where all your effort was getting out your wallet. Most of us are trying out new recipes and I’m very excited. I’ve got three or four things I’ll be making. I’ll also have some non-chocolate stuff out to break it up a bit. At least I’m having party game night and the chocolate party back-to-back so I’ll only have to clean the house once.

Did I tell you I broke down and bought a Roomba off Woot? What can I say? I caved in. Everyone has one, and they seem so handy (robot vacuum cleaners http://www.irobot.com/sp.cfm?pageid=122). Mike had brought his over before to see how the cats reacted and they were fine. It even clears under my sofa! I named him Jack. But, I can’t run it while I’m gone cause it keeps getting stuck in the bottom of one of my chairs. I just run it when I get home, and it’s so quiet I don’t have to turn the volume up on the TV. Yes, I’m so lazy I watch TV while Jack vacuums.

Oh, do you not know what woot is?? Have I mentioned it to you? Well, one of the benefits of being friends with techies is that I hear about all the cool websites and new items coming out. Woot is a website that sells one item per day. If that item sells out, that’s it for the day. You never know how many they have to sell. Every so often there’s a woot-off where they clean out their inventory and they sell one item after another as each one sells out. Usually you can get amazing deals. A lot of the time the units are refurbished. That means someone has returned the item to the manufacturer, they fix whatever was wrong with it, and resell it cheaper. My roomba was a refurb and really there’s nothing wrong with it. New ones go for $200-$500 depending on the model. I got mine for under $100. I also bought a Dyson off woot for $200 instead of the usual $400. Mainly I like woot cause it’s something to check in the morning when I get into work. It’s fun to see what they have. Sometimes it’s cool, sometimes it’s crap. When it’s crap the forums really have fun tearing it up. Check it out! New items go up at midnight central time. www.woot.com

San Antonio p2

I need to get to bed, but wanted to add these pictures of the missions. Besides the Alamo, there are 4 other missions. I saw two and drove by a third. They are all within about three miles of each other - which would have been an easy day of walking. The last picture is of the 'rose window' which is supposedly famous,...eh, it was pretty.

Ok, here I was just playing with camera angles.

San Antonio p1b

Here are pictures from the Botanical Gardens








They also had glassed in conservatories. This one was all orchids. It was so pretty!




This conservatory had tropical plants. Thought this pic was cool.