Hello Winter....

"Oh Hi Mr. Winter...so you thought you would drop in huh?"
---"Well it has been awhile since we last met. How are you MaryRose?"
"Well truth be told Mr. Winter I am cold and wet."
---"Yes sorry about that...I promise I won't be around long. I will only be around until March, April at the latest."
"APRIL!?!?!?! Are you kidding me?"
---"What MaryRose I thought you liked winter? I thought you loved coats, and hats, and scarves, and sweaters? When did you change?"
"I changed when you decided to stay around for five months! Mr. Winter I am breaking up with you!"

----MaryRose

A Long 48 Hours....

This weekend was spent doing:

• Celebrating the birthday's of two lovely gals. Though I will have to admit at the beginning of the evening I was a bit of a Scrooge...it was cold and I was in a funk. But the night was delightful even though a great deal of time was spent playing games on Ben's iPhone. It was also pretty clear to me that I am not cool enough to live in the Ukranian Village...
  

Small Bar

• Saturday I stayed in bed until 3pm. Of course this sounds bad, but one must remember that I live in a studio and my bed is in fact my couch...though I did move to the one chair that I have a couple of times. The only time that I left the apartment was to purchase some Mint-Chocolate Chip Ice Cream. It was my only friend that day...well that at Sex and the City.

• Saturday was also spent cleaning my apartment. I get such great satisfaction when cleaning...of course it takes no time at all for me to dirty it up again...silly MaryRose!

• Sunday was the following: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Dark Knight, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It was a day devoted to fantasy....and probably one of the better days in recent memory.

• Seeing how I ate mint ice cream for dinner on Saturday, I figured it would probably be a good thing to have a few vegetables in my stomach on Sunday...so vegan stir-fry it was!

• This recipe consisted of:

1. Fried Tofu (I bought the pre-fried variety)
2. Garlic
3. Spices (I used paprika, tumeric, curry powder, cayenne powder, cumin, salt, and crushed red peppers). I kind of just eyeballed everything
4. Sesame Oil
5. Broccoli
   
6. Red Peppers
7. Snow Peas
8. Bean Sprouts
9. Frozen Peas
10. Baby Corn
11. Red Curry Paste
12. Soy Sauce
    
13. Coconut Milk

Pretty much saute everything together before putting in the coconut milk until the vegetables are done. When the veggies are done I put in a small can of coconut milk. After adding the coconut milk I covered my wok and let it simmer for 5-10 mins. Served over rice.....SO GOOD!

So there you have it...my weekend in a nutshell.....What did you do?

---Mary Rose

Oh (sparkly) Christmas Tree!!

The holiday season is officially upon us!  Ben and I decided to put our tree up the day after Thanksgiving.  Smokey was pretty excited by that idea.  It is our first Christmas with a cat.  Luckily, he has only knocked one ornament off the tree so far and it wasn't breakable!  

Here, Smokey is getting to know our tree.  
Our lovely decorated tree!  We definitely aren't very matchy-matchy with our tree... We have some pretty childish ornaments actually.  A robot here, a cowboy there, and lets not forget about my favorite pink elephant!

The robot is our only ornament we've bought this year, but we couldn't pass it up.  It is just too cute!

---Martha!

Christmas Should Come Early...

In case you were wondering what I would like for Christmas this year...let me just show you....

WikstenMade

----MaryRose

You see how picky I am about my shoes...

One benefit of my job is the fact that the organization that I work for (Chicago House & Social Services Agency) has many fancy benefits throughout the year…one drawback is that we as employees must volunteer for at least one of them. Meaning I won’t get to partake of Champagne Wrapture 2008! Instead I will be GIVING TREE ATTENDANT number 3!

I am excited about this don’t get me wrong, but it leaves me with the age old dilemma…what do I wear? This is what I was thinking…

Hmmmm....

---MaryRose