You got a friend in me...

My co-worker Jay came over for dinner tonight. Last Friday, his house was destroyed by a tree during a pretty brutal wind storm. While he is staying in a hotel, there is only so much you can do with a microwave and fridge, so I invited him over for dinner. We started with a Bruschetta, which I cheated and made with canned diced tomatoes (Italian style and drained), red onion, garlic, French bread, parsley and parmesan cheese. Next was a salad of arugula, pear, walnuts, blue cheese and home made balsamic vinaigrette. The main course was a baked rigatoni, which I made with home made marinara cream sauce (whole canned tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, red pepper flakes, oregano, cream and parmesan cheese). This time I also added Italian Sausage, which was a good decision. It added to the comfort factor. Finally, dessert was a cheesecake drizzled with black cherry sauce. Everything was washed down with a glass of Sangiovese.

Cat sitting...

Tonight I cat sat for Annika and Layla. It's been awhile since I saw them, but they seemed to remember me. They are so much more active than Ginger - maybe its because there are two of them. Last night we hung out and caught up on Suze Orman. Annika perched herself on the table for awhile, while Layla made it to the top of the hutch, which is apparently a permitted perching location.

Zoe turns 6!

  Tonight at Yappie Hour, we celebrated Zoe's 6th birthday! It's hard to believe she was a toddler when I first met her so many years ago. I sometimes think Zoe is older than she is, because she does things sometimes that blow you away. She’s such an insightful, inquisitive, sweet and polite child who is loved by so many people and I've enjoyed watching her come out of her shell. We celebrated Zoe with Black Russian Cake (a Junior League favorite) and presents. Between nail polish, books, cupcake makers and clothes - she made out! The best part was when we were leaving she said “Kelly, wait! I want to give you a hug.”

Packed with hope...

Tonight after our Junior League GMM, we did a "Done In  A Meeting" project. As the name implies, these projects are done in a meeting, which is a great idea! Tonight's project had each of us bring a breakfast, lunch, dinner item or drink so we could prepare weekend food packages for children. Many children rely on the Government sponsored breakfast and lunch while at school, but go hungry on the weekends. These little packages provide a little bit of comfort and noruishment to these children and will be distributed throughout Northern Virginia.

New Mice!

So I finally got tired of looking all over the house for G's missing mice, so I broke down and bought her some new ones (along with more food and flea meds!). She was all over this package as soon as it was out - so much so that she even tried to carry the whole package in her mouth. I'm going to ration these little guys and see how long we can make them last!

One of my favorite things...

I heart the OPI nailpolish. They have great colors, awesome marketing and the polish lasts quite sometime. I'm a sucker for this dark red (almost black) nail color (Lincoln Park After Dark) and wear it pretty much all the time, but I decided to mix things up with this girly pink (Conquistadorable Color).

Huh?

It's no secret that my girl likes to eat. However recently, I've been noticing that she has been leaving food behind or eating very sloooowwwllly and in shifts. Every night before bed time, she gets a little crunchy treat. She begs and begs for this all  night long, but has been leaving some crunchies behind. I'm hoping this is just a residual effect from her flea meds I applied the other day and she'll be back to her piggy self soon.