My sole BF purchase was a $25 gift card from Starbucks so I could get a free $5 promo gift card.

Spent the day cleaning and organizing the utility room using the two new shelves I bought. Finally moved the fancy cat litter box into the small bathroom. I'm hoping New Cat won't destroy it with bad aim. Tomorrow we'll expand the organizing effort to the living room so I can put up the tree.

My understanding is that Qatar built this center and invited a handful of universities to operate a small endeavor there. George Mason was invited for their law program, I think, and VCU was invited for their art program. My friend worked at George Mason when this first happened and he decided to work there for a few months. That's the only reason I know as much as I do.

We deep-fry our turkey so we have zero issues with taste.

I'm thankful I'm a native English speaker and that the Internet basically caters to us. I'm attempting to make infusible ink mugs using a non-English alphabet for my cousins' aunts and omg the struggles are real. My cousin was like, "just do it in English," and I got mad. I have a freaking $300 Cricut. This shouldn't be this difficult! But it is. And I'm thankful I speak English.

I went to Cameo Cakery for the first time this past week and I really liked it. It's the first moist cupcake that the husband has eaten in RVA aside from Ukrop's which he thinks is too sweet. But this is relevant to your question because I also tried an espresso martini from there and I enjoyed it. To be honest, I'm not sure I've ever had an espresso martini before, (only a chocolate martini) so I don't have a discriminating palate. I think you should give them a shot though.

I started following Cooks Illustrated's Instagram account this past week and I've already learned a lot, specifically that fully cooked turkey can still be pink and how to pick a good sweet potato.

I'm the queen of the side dishes for Thanksgiving. My favorites/once a year offerings are Sweet Onion Quiche. (I use the recipe and pour it in a pie shell.) Cranberry Salad and Slow cooker cornbread dressing.

Cinebistro was only built a few years ago.

PSA: Don't buy the popcorn. It's terrible. Like OMG terrible. It's not even as good as grocery store popcorn in a bag.

I saw Aziz Ansari sitting here and it was freaking amazing. I, however, got tickets for the Grand Tier bc I couldn't remember that it was the balcony until I went recently.

Yeah, things were just starting to turn around then. According to one of my professors who used to be the US attorney for the area, one of the main reasons for the improvement was Project Exile - enforcement of the federal law forbidding firearms to be held by felons.

My office is currently about two miles away.. The lease will be up at the end of next year though and we're not sure where we're moving.

Today is our wedding anniversary. The SO is on call though so I don't know what we'll be doing to celebrate.

Cracked open the bottle of Pinot Noir that a friend gave me after my dog died. I may or may not get ridiculously wasted tonight. I want to sit outside, but it feels weird being in the yard with no dog.

Yes. Drive-by shootings and those aren't random apartments. It was really rough there. Hell, my BFF told me that when her brother had just started with Henrico County PD ages ago, he was assigned to those apartments and all he did was ask folks to do their drug deals under the streetlights so everyone could see what everyone was doing, and no one would get shot. She was like, what was a single white guy going to do? Arrest everyone there?

I was about to say don't forget what it was like in the 80s and 90s, but then I realized that I have no idea how old you are.

Started watching House of the Dragon last night. Interesting seeing the retconning of Targaryen history.

Tomorrow I'n headed out to the Williamsburg outlets and the Norfolk IKEA. Got some relatives who are going overseas and they have a specific wishlist for gifts, including knives. After I bought an IKEA meat cleaver a few years ago on a whim, I read up on their knives and discovered that despite the low price tag, it's shockingly high quality. Now they're getting IKEA knives instead of Faberware.

So my childhood church is nearby, and I distinctly remember sitting there in the early 90s and the youth pastor and the teenagers talking about how they had been recently built for that reason.

Those apartments near RIR on Laburnum with the giant hills of dirt in front of them? Those are earthworks they built in the 90s to prevent drive-bys.

Halloween is our wedding anniversary! He's on call though and we're playing DnD. May just get take out. I made him get a bag of candy, but we usually only get a handful of kids.

Josh's Jungle Carolina Reaper Salt is really good. I think it's more versatile than an actual hot sauce. Like, sprinkling some on some steamed vegetables. I guess you can put hot sauce all over it, but the Reaper Salt works well to compliment the natural flavors vs. overpowering them.

New cat had caught a chipmunk or baby squirrel when I went outside the other day. I wanted to move my peppers inside, but I couldn't handle the death squeaks so I went back inside.

Does it list anime ink that's happening this weekend?

I don't know why you're getting down voted so hard on this because you're right. It's the best way of getting poor kids to do well because they end up being susceptible to the peer pressure to do well in school rather than the opposite.

What is this baby needs a hat East Coast theory?

Edit: nevermind. I saw your response to another post and I agree 100%.

Yes. They're right next to it.

I think it depends on your agency, your division and your manager. I move all sorts of heavy things in the office, put furniture together, pull out my pocket knife, etc. I have asked men in the office to do stuff for me, but to be honest, it's because I usually wear dresses and they're wearing pants. If I had known that this task was coming up, I would have worn pants and done it myself. But my boss doesn't see sex or race. He only cares if you're doing your job.