John's 29th

John had a great birthday on Monday, or at least that's what he told me. I can't believe he's 29. I remember when he was 21. Dang! So, I put a card and a Reese's Pieces heart in his laptop bag, and then Hallie & I surprised him later by visiting him at work. We brought a present (framed money art for his office) balloons, and IBC root beer.


{Apparently the hostess at the restaurant neglected to hold down to focus}

Then we went out at night (thanks Steph) to Salt Grass Steakhouse. We both had steak & shrimp and other delectable sides. I had planned on going out to see a movie, but in the end, there wasn't anything we were dying to see in the theater (which was fine with me cuz I had a headache), so we watched Becoming Jane on our Netflix queue. Of course, we did presents, and ate a birthday brownie pie that I made. YUM!



Thanks to all the other gift-givers! He had a great time opening presents!
Oh, and I shan't forget the one present he bought for himself: ROCKBAND. I can tell he's really been enjoying it. He stayed up til the wee hours last weekend playing. It's interesting, he plays guitar (in real life) but the only part he has played with the game is the drums. He's pretty good too, from what I can tell--he's already on expert on several of the songs. Hmmm...I can hear the drumming now.

I Love You John

We had a great Valentine's Day. John surprised me with roses! 3 dozen! He also gave me a couple eyeshadows (Not gonna lie, I bought them for John to give to me) and a couple more pieces to our new Willow Tree nativity set that I got for Christmas. So nice!

I thought I'd play it safe with a box of Turtles plus a little gift that is still en route. We usually don't do a lot for Valentine's, but this year was a gift year I guess. I was planning to go out for the evening (we take turns planning Valentine's and anniversary), but John and Hallie had been sick so we got pizza and watched movies. A nice, laid-back night. I love you so much John! You're such a good man to me.

NASTY!

What the heck!! I am appalled after reading an article about Peanut Corp in Georgia--you know the peanut product company that got shut down after the recent salmonella outbreaks?

The Georgia plant found 12 (!) positive tests for salmonella, but kept sending the contaminated samples to different labs to get negative results!! It's really sad that the employees couldn't afford to notify the authorities sooner.

Here are a few exerpts from the article:

"According to the workers, not a day went by that they didn't see roaches or rats scurrying about. And after a heavy rain, workers said, they had to step over puddles of water inside the building.

"Another former employee, James, 36, said he worked in the shipping area for eight months before leaving last year. During that time, James said he "saw them put new stickers on buckets of peanut paste that were out-of-date. There were roaches, rats and everything out there.

"Some of the bags of nuts had holes in them, and you could tell rats had eaten through them. And they would put tape on them or sew them up and send them out," James said. "Sometimes there would be mold on them, and they told us to pick out the good nuts and put them in another bag."

"He said the employees often talked among themselves about the conditions, but he said most workers did not complain to management because they wanted to keep their jobs.

"I'm not surprised this happened," James said. "I just hate that people died."

Well, there you go. I just got chills.