halloween
Didn’t dress up this year 
didn’t have time to plan it and didn’t even carve a pumpkin!… but at work they REALLY celebrate halloween. they have a costume contest with a bunch of categories you can enter in and then you win gift certificates to the mall. a lot of people dress up, i kinda wish i did. the parade/contest was awesome. in the most creative contest, this guy won that dressed up as a a deal or no deal model, he had a suitcase and all with $1,000,000 sign in it hah! he shaved his legs and everything, dedication there. another girl in the same category dressed as a mouse with a yellow inner tube on that said Titanic and she was a rat jumping a sinking ship! hah. they were so clever. in the group costume category i loved this group of 4 people that were the flintstones. they looked like the flintstones even without the costumes, there was a red head that was wilma, the tall big guy looked like fred, shorter guy barney and dark haired girl betty. they had wigs though and very authentic costumes and even carried a cut out of the flintstones car! in our web group, marie dressed as a very authentic looking pirate, she had all the clothes down and the real swords, etc.
There were lots of other really good costumes, some were ship themed, like the “Emerald Princess” one of our ships and it was a guy in this green flashy dress with big fake boobs and a big fake butt, and huge blonde wig. he looked so funny. Someone else was the Cunard “Queen Elizabeth 2″, it’s one of the oldest ships in the fleet, so she was super old with grey hair, and dressed in 1930s fancy clothes. HR took a bunch of pics so when I get them I’ll post them.
Hope everyone else’s halloween was fun! Can’t wait to dress up next year 
i got the green thumb gene!!
I’m so excited! I thought I was a gardening failure after my green thumb parents helped me plant a garden in my backyard last year and everything died a month later. But, now my garden in the backyard is flourishing! The bougainvellia are growing like mad and the allysum have been going strong for a loooong time even need trimming!
Even my indoor plants are doing well. My corn plant in the front room started growing shoots of what looked like mini koosh balls out of it and I thought it was infested with something, but then looked it up and it’s very very rare, but corn plant will flower on occassion and when it does, it only does about once every 7 YEARS! And even better it’s one of the most fragrant flowers imagineable, it’s stronger than hyacinth but smells like hyacinth. The entire downstairs and half the upstairs smells of it. I love it!! 
Here’s some pics:
The garden in the backyard
A bee buzzing around the allysum
My bougainvellia
My corn plant
The super fragrant flowers on the corn plant
Long time no post!
There was a state of emergency declared in Buffalo last weekend due to the early 2 feet of heavy wet snow.. it pretty much wrecked a LOT of Buffalo’s trees. And power was out for 450,000 people.. trees took the power lines/cable lines/phone lines down. I think they got all the power back though within 5 days. Parents are all good now, but a lot of the trees are broken hopefully the trees survive and next spring bounce back.
Having more of a fall here in LA than in Buffalo.. well northern LA all the trees up here are changing colors
Been busy doing genealogy research. I’m on some kind of history kick.. Ancestry.com is great.
oh and i made the BEST focaccia yesterday.. i’m talking Maria’s Italian Kitchen focaccia… sooooo good! This ties in with the ancestry.com thing… my grandma’s maiden name means “cook’s apprentice” in Polish. 
Street Art Festival
Went to Santa Clarita’s street art festival today with Josh. It was really cool. Lots of art stands, with jewelery, paintings, photography, crafts, etc., live music, some bungee rides, jump houses etc. And then there’s a bunch of squares taped off in a black top parking lot and a artists register a month in advance to draw whatever they want in their square and they’re sponsered by local businesses.
Here’s a few really cool ones, I put the rest I really liked into the photo gallery.. see link on the right:
I’m definitely going to sign up to do one next year. Gotta work up my chalk/charcoal skills… I used to be pretty good at pencil portraits with blending, shading etc. so I think I could pull it off.
MINI has earned an official name.
today, my MINI was officially named. i was telling josh how i take my MINI to the limit… to the limit! to the limit! i started singing and josh sang the rest and now my MINI has a name: fhwdgads!
unfortunately you won’t understand this post unless you’re an avid homestar runner fan
p.s. posted a few kansas city pics in the photo gallery from my recent trip there on business.. it was only a few days and i took classes so i didn’t have time to explore the city
