Leavin' on a Jet Plane?

So I must apologize for my recent absence.  I have been traveling the US this past week and not by choice.  Our company has just acquired a new client in Seattle.  I was chosen as one of the staff to go to Seattle for our kick off meeting.  I was very excited not only to be chosen to go to this meeting but also to visit Seattle, a city I had never been to. 

Because the meeting began on a Monday, we decided to go up early on Sunday to see the sites.  Good idea in theory… however, it was not to be.  Our journey began early on Sunday with a 6:30am flight from our regional airport to connect in Atlanta and fly to Seattle. However, fog delayed our flight until 8:20 (1).  By the time that we finally arrived in Atlanta, all non-stop flights to Seattle were booked, making our day into a nationwide tour of airports.  From Atlanta, we went Cincinnati for a 4 hour layover and then would arrive in Seattle at 7pm (2). 

After our airport excursion, I made a few observations:

1. Regional airports = Airport Amateur Day. I'm not just talking about 1/2 of the passengers who had never flown in their lives.  It seemed that no one knew what was going on: desk agents, security and gate agents had no idea what they were suppose to be doing.  
2. Just because a restaurant has Wolfgang Puck in the title does not mean that it will be classy ... or even good
3. Paying $5 for Tetris on your iPhone never seemed worth it .. until you are stuck in an enclosed area with nothing to watch but the Cincinnati/Steelers game.
4. People in Cincinnati are serious about football
5. It is completely acceptable to lay on the floor and go to sleep in an airport
6. If you do decide to fall asleep, make sure that you have a buddy … otherwise people may draw things on you (3)
7. Apparently people think that it is fine to bring infants and toddlers on a red eye flight (4)
8. A neck pillow can be the best purchase that you have made in a month
9. If a gate agent gives you a first class ticket, take it and run
10. You may think that first class isn’t as great as people say it is, but after sitting in airports for 7 hours … a couple of glasses of wine and being able to stretch your legs is amazing (5)

 1. Coincidentally the same time that our connecting flight left Atlanta’s airport

 2. Only 8 hours after our original landing time

 3. Yeah and you thought that just happened in college

 4. Yeah … its not, not cool at all

 5. Apparently Delta felt bad for us and bumped us to first class,

Awesome. The only word to describe it.

So you ever have one of those overwhelming cravings?  Well I often get a hankering (1) for peanut butter and chocolate (2) and this time decided to make something satiate the craving.  I decided a chocolate cake with peanut butter filling and dark chocolate Reeses would do the trick.  I looked up a chocolate cake recipe that I hadn't tried before (3).  To complete the Peanut Butteriness of the cake, I mixed in 1 1/2 cups of chopped dark Reeses (4) into the cake batter and 1 cup of peanut butter into the frosting. Then I spread a layer of peanut butter (it's easiest if you melt it) on each cake layer.  After frosting the cake, I put another cup and a half of chopped Reeses on the outside of the frosted cake as decoration (5).

Normally I feel like my baking is pretty good but this time I out did myself.   This cake was awesome.  It was rich and dense, just like my grandmother use to make.  Just as proof, I took this cake (6) to work and 2 people asked me for the recipe (7).

Here it is again.  It can be a bit scary, if you don't make a lot of cakes from scratch but it would be a special holiday treat! Just try it.

4 Pictures.. yeah it really was 4 pictures good.

Sorry for the big chunk taken out of it... It was calling my name.

1. Southern for a Strong and relentless desire
2. The best combination that God invented after cheese and wine
3. http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/dark-chocolate-cake-with-ganache-frosting 
4.  Feel free to mix in more for a little more pb kick
5.  on second thought, it's probably better just to get 2 bags of Reeses .. That way you can eat lots some of them as you bake.
6. Actually just 1/3 of the cake b/c Mr. MedSchool and I ate the other 2/3rds over the weekend
7. Which seems small but it's like 15% of our office

Frosted Ice Lipstick ... As if

So remember the 90s? The fashion: high waisted pants, long flowery sheath dresses and oversized everything.  Remember the makeup?  I first started wearing makeup in the 90s and learned to apply my lipstick like this:

Ahhh. frosted ice lipstick with a cappuccino liner.  So 1998. 


Well the makeup of the 90s lends itself to the Word of the Week.  The word is:

Vermillion Border

Mr. MedSchool's Definition:  The line that separates your lip from your face


Medical Definiton: The normally sharp demarkation between the red of the lip and the adjacent normal skin 


Used in a sentence: In order to look smokin' and draw attention to her mouth, Claire applied extra thick lip liner to her Vermillion Border.  Whatever ...


Sorry ... just added the Whatever in there because I was reminded of Clueless while searching for 90s catch phrases. As if  

Swine Flu Solutions

So being in the "Medical Community," we hear a lot about the H1N1 virus (1).  Several of Mr. MedSchool's friends have had the virus so far (2).  The med school students are being told that 40% of the students and faculty will have the swine flu sometime over the flu season.  This in turn equals a 40% chance that I will have the swine flu sometime this season.  Great...

Mr. MedSchool did send me a solution of how other institutions are handling the swine flu problem.

Perhaps it's something that we should take into consideration.

1. And not just as the 5 people who dressed up as Swine Flu at the Halloween Party we went to  
2. It's okay, they've all pulled through okay 

Let Me See that Tootsie Roll

For Halloween, we had planned to go to a few parties but wouldn't be leaving our home until 9pm or so.  Just in case a trick-or-treater or 2 came by, I went out an bought a couple of bags of candy.  Of course, as fate would have it, no trick-or-treaters made it by equaling tons of 

Now I specifically got these 2 candies because I am not particularly fond of them (1).  So now we have the dilemma of what to do with all of this candy (2).  After an afternoon of recipe searching on the Web, I decided to do what I do with all of my leftover Christmas candy and stick the leftover Tootsie rolls into a batch of blondies (3).  With the addition of some peanuts in the batter and left over ganache frosting from a cake.   They turned out really well except for the Tootsie rolls that melted on the bottom of the pan (4).   

Now if I could just figure out what to do with the Smarties.

1. But Mr. MedSchool will eat anything

2. I mean...besides eat it all

3. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tori-ritchie/monster-macadamia-nut-blondies-recipe/index.html

4. Parchment paper...next time

You Really Expect Me to Put That on the Internet?

So Mr. Medschool has really gotten into the Medical Word of the Week.  He sends me words to my email or excitedly tells me about a new word while I am on my computer.  Sometimes I think that he gets a little too into it though.  Like with this week's word:

Pudendal Nerve

Now it sounds like an innocent little nerve.  Nothing Special.  However, this was Mr. MedSchool's evil trick to make me put something inappropriate on the blog... So when I asked what it meant this is what I got:

Mr. MedSchool's Definition: Nerve that gives sensation to your junk

Medical Definition: Somatic nerve in the pelvic region that innervates the external genitalia of both sexes.

After hearing this definition our conversation went like this:

Me: (shooting an are you serious glance) "Really, you actually think I'm going to put that?" (1)
Mr. MedSchool: "This is Med school, you can't be shy..."

Gotcha... okay ... so in the spirit of med school(2), I give you Pudendal Nerve, the word of the week

1. Yeah he's seen that one before
2. and not being shy 

It's a Family Affair

So Mr. MedSchool and I were invited to a Couples Pumpkin Carving party put on by members of the Wives Club.  We enjoy holiday festivities like pumpkin carving, dying Easter eggs, and other  fun stuff (1).

So we toted our pumpkins and potluck dish over to a fellow Wife's house so that Mr. Medschool could use his new dissection skills on the pumpkin.  We showed up on time (2) and as the other couples began to arrive, I noticed that they both had kids with them.  Then another couple came with their baby.  Awesome. I know that the invite said families were invited but I still don't think about people our age having kids.  In Big City, South, we had lots of single friends and some married friends but none of them had kids.  After moving to Small Town, South, everyone we know is married and most of them are starting families or have little ones (3).  So having kids at every event that we go to is new to us.

Don't get me wrong, I like kids and I want to have kids some day (4).   However, Mr. MedSchool and I are smart enough to know that if we were to raise a child at this juncture in our lives... we would screw it up (5).  Not that we aren't responsible, caring people (6), we're just not ready to raise another human being.

So as we helped 4 year olds carve jackolanterns (7), we continued to adjust to our newfound friends and their families (8).  Maybe it will be good practice for some day done the road (9).

Most importantly we did find time to actually carve our own pumpkins.

1. Yeah I know we can be lame sometimes but this didn't just start when we got married.. apparently, we have always been lame.  
2. I have a thing with being prompt
3. Little ones with big voices
4. Probably... maybe ... I think
5. Yeah, I just referred to a child as "it"
6. Not that we are, either 
7. 4 year olds with knives... even I know that's a bad idea
8. and holding newborn babies without freaking out
9. Like miles and miles and miles down the road