Happy Coins

Normally when I'm looking through my coin jar I look for quarters or sometimes even a loonie. Typically I do this when I don't have any cash and I need a few bucks to last me until I get to a bank. Now? I scrounge for nickles. My coworker has a gumball machine which currently has easter eggs in it. A mixture of jelly beans, malt balls, and mini eggs. I am extremely addicted and was sad when I only had 3 nickles in my purse. One nickle will you get 3 - 4 eggs. I now have a good sized handful of nickles to take to work to keep me happy over the weekend studying.

What they don't want you to know

I like clean. Clean makes me happy. The process for the most part I don't mind, but there are things that drive me crazy. Dusting. It seems to be never ending. I use my swiffer mit and wipe away the dust, but when I'm done, there's still dust. Nooo go away argh. In this case I typically just wait for the sun to go away and I can go back to not being able to see it.

The stove is another story. The stove and I are not friends. I always spray BAM! on it in the morning and clean later that night. But it doesn't all come off. Depending how much time I have I can let it go, or I go into OCD overdrive. Last week it was the latter.

I decided I'd google it since I had good luck finding lemon pledge on stainless steel appliances this way. I came across a site that suggests using baking soda. I would have probably ignored it but she claims that 'with a little elbow grease it'll come right off. And I do mean a little'. I was intrigued. I got out the baking soda box and gave it a go. And wow. It really did work. Craziness.

I then went on a baking soda cleaning binge and was surprised by how great in general it worked. The sinks sparkled, the stained white plastic garbage can that refused to get clean became white, and the fridge was clear and white once again. It was great.

But who knew?? Sure, the baking soda box says you can use it to clean, but there are no commercials on how great it cleans so I didn't believe them. And that's how they like it. They don't want people realizing there's a cheap, environmentally friendly cleaner without an awful smell that works really well or else their other more expensive products wouldn't sell.

The next day at work I tell my coworkers who sit near me about this. The guy tells his mom this later that night. She claims I'm wrong, that it doesn't clean well. My other coworker's mom thinks I'm young and foolish and I don't know what I'm talking about and refuses to try it. *tear*

I also wrote my dad a big long email about the wonders of baking soda and he responds with enthusiasm. He is in awe of such a discovery and had no idea. The next time he's out shopping he picks up a fresh box of baking soda and tries it out. He was surprised at just how well it worked and actually enjoyed cleaning for a change. I was happy to finally share my happy cleaning experience with somebody.

This post is longer than my valentine's day post. I take this to mean cleaning is more fun than quinoa. *shakes head* Also, I love saying BAM! like in the commercials. It's so much fun. In other news, I just found a wicked looking split end which I've decided I will give as a gift to my coworker as a going away present. It's sad, but I'm not even joking. I will probably end up making some sort of splitting ways joke too. Hilarious, I know.

I like brackets today

Valentine's day was great. I generally think Valentine's day is stupid, so very early I made it clear that I didn't want to make a big deal about it but I did want to do something little.

Friday night we went out for dinner for winterlicious, which was a celebration of Friday the 13th, my age nearest birthday, pseudo-quasi valentine's day, and payment from an old bet. Overall a very productive and yummy time.

Saturday I spent the day at work studying (and I peed in each of the 4 stalls in the washroom!! (I never do that. We share the bathroom with the other side of the floor so I just use the two closest to our side because otherwise that's weird. it just is.)) and when I got back we made a simple meal of sesame/breaded baked chicken, snow peas, and rice. For dessert we made apple crisp.

Gifts!! You may remember Jer's obsession with mochas, and lately he's been trying to recreate them at home. He recently adopted a tassimo coffee machine and can now make espressos. But what he was really missing was good chocolate syrup. He was just using Hersey's which I've never enjoyed ever (redudant? yes. but it's just that bad). So I made him chocolate syrup and now his mochas are great and close to being comparable to SPoT's. I also made him a personalized cook book by developing pictures of the food we've cooked together, making recipe cards, and putting it into a little photo album.

Jer bought me apple jelly (which I love but can never find), york peppermint patties (I'm so addicted to these), and quinoa!!! Why am I so excited about quinoa? I've recently decided we need to start cooking with it and it's super healthy and well, that's it. On Sunday we made a quinoa and mixed bean side dish and it was sooo good. Anyway, he also made me a bunch of dinosaur comics about memorable j&j events which is so awesome and they are all hilarious. jen like jer.

A little fun

You know what's fun about penis pasta? (Besides the obvious of course.) Bringing it in to eat at work. The fact that I did this on a Saturday does not take away from the awesome factor. I still felt sneaky and bad-ass for getting away with something I'm sure would be frowned upon.

And there was at least one other person in the office so it could have gone horribly wrong. I can just imagine this older lady getting a wide-eye expression and muttering something like 'oh my' before quickly running away. I guess that would have been better than my old boss, who showed up later in the day, noticing and probably trying to have a conversation about it. That wouldn't have been awkward at all.

But thankfully I managed to warm up my penis pasta and get to my desk unnoticed. I may have giggled a little while I ate my lunch.

Don't Hate on the Chocolate Cake

While Jer and I were still very subtly flirting/getting to know each other, I discovered something about Jer I didn't especially like:

"Your cake sounds delicious, if it's a dense cake with homemade icing, I generally like it. Except for chocolate cake, I rarely if ever like chocolate cake, even the highest quality ones. I like real chocolate, but chocolate flavoured things, like cake, I don't usually like. Here's your challenge: Make a chocolate cake that I love. (P.S. You will fail, so you shouldn't bother trying.)"

Who doesn't like chocolate cake??! I vowed not to waste my chocolate lava cakes on him, but of course that didn't last.

Shortly after we started dating I convinced him chocolate cake with chocolate warm delicious goo with ice cream just might actually be really good. And in the end, Jer agreed: "The warm cake encasing the delightful, moist, melty inside, combining with the ice cream to form an amazingly delicious mess was, well, amazing."

But it wasn't until recently that I decided this case to be officially closed.

The other weekend I decided I felt like baking. I scrolled through my starred recipes in my google reader and came across a cute and delicious looking loaf pan chocolate layer cake. Even Jer was a bit excited about it. After he tasted the batter he was even more excited. I picked up some vanilla frozen yogurt and after dinner we had a piece. It was yummy but we took way too much and just felt sick afterwards. There was so much cake left so I decided we'd cut it in half and freeze it all for later.

Last weekend I wanted cake so we took out half to defrost. It was still cold when we wanted to eat it so I figured might as well try the microwave. And oh wow. The cake got all warm and soft and the icing was a bit melty. With the frozen yogurt it was delicious. We had more the next night too.

But it wasn't until a few days later that I knew he'd never claim not to like chocolate cake again. He asked me with hopeful eyes if we could take out the rest of the chocolate cake from the freezer.

Transformation complete.