Had a great Thanksgiving everything turned out really great! I LOVED the Tofurky! I actually didn't even have any regular turkey because the Tofurky was too good! It's very firm & meat like & the stuffing in the middle is yummy! I just finished up the last two leftover slices for lunch today. :)

Tofurky!

 The au gratin potatoes turned out yummy too! They were cheesy creamy and garlicky!

The Pioneer Woman's Potatoes au Gratin

And all the ratties enjoyed Thanksgiving too. All of them (3 groups) shared a little plate with everything. (There are more pictures & video's here of the ratties)

Group 1: Basil, Ivy, Pepper, Poppy, Lily & Jasmine.

Pepper girl.

Basil stealing pumpkin pie!

Even Dad's dog Homer enjoyed some leftovers.

Edited to add: Look what just arrived today! My Starbuck's Holiday items! :)

So today I picked up a Tofurky from Bunn's Natural Food's store. I've been wanting to try one. I'm not vegetarian, but when I'm cooking for myself, I usually don't make too many meat based dinners. I love tofu & I love trying health foods. I'm just not a big turkey eater. I like turkey lunch meat, but I'm not big on regular turkey so we'll see how the Tofurky tastes. I also picked up some ground flax seed to add into my smoothies for fiber & protein. And I got this amazing rosemary & mint soap!

I'm also going to be making The Pioneer Woman's 'Potatoes au Gratin' for Thanksgiving. They look amazing!

Credit: Pioneer Woman

Oooh I just made an amazing smoothie today for lunch! I got the recipe from the blog EatMoveWrite.

What I put in my smoothie: (I added a few extra things)

1/2 cup of vanilla almond milk
1 tablespoon plain yogurt
2 tablespoons ground Flax seed
2 spoonfuls of Peanut Butter
1 half Banana
Big handful of fresh Spinach
Little handful of Kale.
4 ice cubes.
Sweetener (to taste).

It was sooo yummy! All you could taste was the banana and peanut butter. So good!

I have Wednesday & Thursday off and the following Monday. They denied me the day after Thanksgiving off on my vacation schedule... oh well at least I have a few days off from work!

I was so excited when one of our Rat Chatter Forum members posted about Starbuck's selling a stuffed mouse for Christmas! They also have a mouse mug! They are so cute and not too expensive either! I ordered both for $2.99 shipping!

Huxley Writer Mouse: ($7.95)












Writer Mouse Mug: ($6.95)













In other news, I got called back to work and started on Monday. That has to be the shortest furlough ever! (Only 6 weeks- usually we are furloughed for at least 3 months.) The good news is, our move to the new down town campus has been pushed back to December 13th! So no one hour commutes on the train for awhile! It's so eerily empty at our current campus because so many departments are already at the new building down town.

In bad news... I pulled my lower back cleaning the rat cages last Monday. I went to lift the boys cage to clean the pan underneath and forgot to bend my knees when I sat the cage down on the floor. I pulled it good too. It was extremely painful last week. This week it is slowly getting better but as the day progresses it starts to hurt more. I've been taking a memory foam travel pillow to work to put behind my back because our office chairs are awful. I also got a memory foam topper for $30 from Big Lot's which this morning when I woke up I wasn't in too much pain at all. I also slept more soundly, I noticed I wasn't tossing and turning like usual. I guess the memory foam relieves pressure.

F.B. & I have been married for 11 months today. ♥

Why yes... I am a speed reader! It only took me about a week to finish the last 5 books I took out from our library!

Here is what I currently have checked out:

1. The rose of Sebastopol- Katharine  McMahon (Had a hard time with this because it skipped years in almost every chapter.)

2. Primrose past : the 1848 journal of young Lady Primrose Hunt- Caroline Rose. (Kinda boring).

3. Your name is Renee : Ruth Kapp Hartz's story as a hidden child in Nazi-occupied France- Stacy Cretzmeyer (I enjoyed this. It's interesting reading about the Holocaust from France's perspective).

4. Alice I have been : a novel- Melanie Benjamin (This one was pretty interesting- fiction about the real "Alice" in wonderland and her friendship with Lewis Carroll.)

5. In Dublin's fair city- Rhys Bowen (Good read.)

6. Tell me, pretty maiden- Rhys Bowen (I like these Molly Murphy mysteries.)

7. Sarah Morgan : the Civil War diary of a southern woman- Sarah Morgan- Edited by Charles East (I think if I owned this I wouldn't have skipped around so much- but being an actual diary it's very long winded. I still might look for a copy online for myself.)

8. The wet nurse's tale- Erica Eisdorfer (I liked this one)

(I will edit this post with a description of how I liked each book as I finish them.)

I'm so excited! My cousin Jessica and I are going to see The Nutcracker at the Philadelphia Academy of Music on December 18th! (Funny that is the day I was legally married. Even though our wedding was on December 19th!) Our tickets were only $49 and we got pretty good seats in the balcony. Some of the prices were ridiculous!

Credit: PA Ballet

I saw The Nutcracker when I was younger on a school trip. I just love the music in it! I do not like musicals at all, so I'm glad this is ballet! I also HATE driving down town, so we are going to take the train and walk a few blocks past City Hall to the Academy of Music. We picked the 11am show so it will be light out when we take the train down and back home. Now I'll just cross my fingers that it doesn't snow by then!

I also got a call on Tuesday that I've been re-called to work. I have to report on Monday at 7am. Such a short furlough. I don't know why they are calling everyone back the week before they move to the new campus in Center City Philadelphia. I'll have to start commuting on the train an hour to work starting November 22nd. I'm sure going to miss my 10-15 minute car rides to work!

I still am waiting on unemployment for my approval letter. I filed a new claim on November 1st. If they deny me I'll have to appeal and send in all my pay stubs. I still have to claim for the weeks I didn't work; and I have to have the claim open and set up for when we are furloughed again.

I've got a lot of rat/mouse items! I thought it would be fun to share my collection with everyone. (You can click on the pictures to make them larger.)

Most of these came from F.B., F.B.'s aunts & 1 from my Rat Chatter friend.

Stuffed Ratties! 3 from the Philippines & the Xmas one is from my Mom.

2 top left from F.B., 2 I bought from Drusilla & others I got myself.

I got these myself, the coin purse is from Bath & Bodyworks!

These are hanging from the rear view mirror in my car. Got them in the Phil!

F.B. sent me this little guy!

My Dad got me this- he spins around in the cup, lol.

Tita Nel, F.B.'s aunt gave me this purse in the Philippines	!

These were made my by Rat Chatter friend Phyllis! They hang on my wall!

I bought this drawing from Rat Pirate a Rat Chatter friend who is an artist.

Gotta have some rattie books!

My gorgeous very expensive bracelet from Esquivel & Fees.

My cute little charm from Ebay.

My sister in law gave me this- the little Chinese rat spins around.

And let's not forget a very permanent part of my rattie collection!

As you can see I have quite a collection! Some I've bought myself, but a lot of the items were given to me as gifts. And... I'm still adding to it! Do you have any collections?

My husband keeps every email he's ever gotten in his inbox. He doesn't move them to different folders. I don't know how he finds anything- 6 years worth of emails from me in his inbox along with everything else! When he's in the USA, I just might have to organize his emails for him, haha! I'm super overly organized when it comes to my email and my husband laughs at me for it.

These are the folders I use in my email:

Does anyone else organize their emails? Do you have different folders or do you keep everything in your inbox? I noticed I need to start going through the older messages and delete the ones I don't need anymore, I have soooo many stored emails!

Purple is my favorite color! (Along with Pink, Aqua & Black.)

My glasses are purplish:

My customized Converse have purple in them:


I have a lot of purple clothing:


Purple Jewelry, almost all of it came from the Philippines.


I wore purple on my wedding day. (F.B.'s barong was light purple.)


I had a silky soft purple pashmina in case it got chilly in the evening on our wedding day:


My wonderful in-laws & sister in law who put our wedding together included purple in our wedding decor- even our wedding invitations had purple on them.