We’re Country! … Kinda.

31 Aug

Our brother Anthony can convince anyone that the sky is red, so when he told us country music was really cool, we put our opinions aside and took his word for it.  For the last 3 months we have religiously listened to country pop radio on Pandora and after memorizing the words to a handful of songs we decided we were definitely country girls and were ready to go to our first country concert!  After all, we did grow up in the only town in Pennsylvania, Bloomsburg.  No really…it’s the only town.  Despite the fact that it’s a college town, if you drive 2 miles in any direction from campus, you’ll find yourself next to corn fields and cow pastures.  It’s home to the largest fair on the east coast!  Kids actually get out of school for a week to show off their goats and work in the grandstand.

Anyway, last night was the big night! Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan were performing (awesome!)  at “The Great Allentown Fair.” So we absolutely had to go. However, this is what we learned:

  1. We watched too many country pop videos and dressed country cutesy (southernish summer dresses) instead of country hick like the rest of the fair goers (too tight tanks and mini jean shorts).
  2. We didn’t know as many words from the songs as we thought we did.  We foolishly belted out the chorus and then slowly faded away when we realized we didn’t know any other lyrics…we filled-in our silence with claps and head bobs.
  3. All of the hot country cowboys…are not at The Great Allentown Fair.  They are famous and hang out in CMT videos.  Our pick of the litter …wasn’t really close to what we had in mind.

Confession: We immediately wanted to blog about the food, but we decided that since the reason we went to the fair was for the concert, we should touch base on that first.  But seriously, this is the good part.  We dream of fair food like most people dream of winning the lottery, buying a house, or going on vacation.  We deprive ourselves from fair foods for an entire year, so when fair time comes around there’s no holding back!  We’re not kidding…we don’t hold back…at all.  And this time wasn’t any different.  Most people have their fair food favorites, but us?  Nah, everything is a favorite!  So our game plan was to eat as much of whatever we could get our hands on until we ran out of money we got full.  Here to make you jealous and to make our mouths water are pictures of what we consumed during our whole day few hours at the fair.

John the Greek! We love him (whoever he is) and his Gyros. It was the very first stand we spotted so we ran…err in a very lady-like manner, we approached the tent requesting our Gyro Salad…that we at least split. That’s healthier…no?

Vince. He’s another one. Love him and his creations. Vince’s cheesesteaks are the only cheesesteaks one should indulge in. The rest are a waste of time, money and calories. We’re pretty sure the cheese is made in heaven.

Potato cakes. They’re like a pancake but they’re fried mashed potatoes instead. Add salt, ketchup, some salt, ketchup and top it off with some salt and you’re done! Delish.

Homemade icecream! Sounds like a great idea until you think you can actually home-make it. Stick to getting it at the fair. We chose peanut butter twist and classic strawberry with real fruit. We did this so in case we wanted to dabble into each other’s dishes…we wouldn’t funk up the flavors; We’d create peanut butter and jelly. Clever. We know.

Funnel cake is only able to be purchased and consumed at fairs, carnivals…and maybe a shady diner or something. Fried dough and powdered sugar? The only thing missing is a shovel!

After the concert we weren’t… hungry per se but, we had a craving.  We wanted to try the ribbon fries.  As if the amount of food we had consumed wasn’t embarrassing enough, our final fair feast was served to us in a dog dish. What the??

That didn’t stop us though.  We didn’t feel particularly great about ourselves at that moment but, hey we just paid way too much for warm chips!  So after no debate, we finished them.

All in all, our experience was a ton of fun!!  It definitely confirmed our dreams and desires to be country bumpkins, so much so, that we decided our next destination will be Nashville, TN where we’ll really fit in!

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Typical.

27 Aug

If you were a bystander and spotted us waddling through the parking lot yesterday, arms filled with bags and a frozen yogurt in each of our hands, you would have thought we were leaving a grocery store.  Nope.  We were leaving Ikea…known for its FURNITURE.

We made a quick  stop with our mother to buy an end table.   While in the checkout line, our eyes caught a glimpse of the wonderful Swedish world of exotic treats across the way!  We successfully failed at denying our temptations on our way out the door and once again (yes, embarrassingly enough this has happened before) managed to leave Ikea with a higher food bill than the cost of the single item we had set out to purchase.  Whoopsie.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why we failed to stick to our 30-day cleanse.

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How Many Per Serving? According to Who!?!

24 Aug

They set us up for failure. They, being the people who decide what a serving size is.  We bought a bag of the most amazing Combos ever, Buffalo Blue Cheese Pretzel.  We know, we should have been eating celery sticks and oat flakes since we’re supposed to be on our cleanse, but we hadn’t eaten all morning, it was around 1:30PM and our stomachs were getting angry.  Since our only snack options came from a Stop n’ Go off the turnpike, we settled on a snack bag of flavor filled pretzels.  After all, they aremade with real cheese.  Harmless right? Wrong.  Each bag contained 7 servings!  Only 8 combos per snack sesh?! That wouldn’t even satisfy a baby squirrel.  That either means the little bag we thought we’d share was meant for not 2, but 7 people OR one person who buys that bag can indulge 7 different times before the bag is empty.  This is absurd. Almost as absurd as Lay’s® slogan “betcha can’t eat just one.”  Yeah, we bet so too!  We bet we won’t stop until the bag is empty!

These tricksters (the marketers for unhealthy snacks) are smart!  First of all, they put the Combos in a bag that looks smaller than the others.  Then they decorate that bag with larger-than-life-sized, perfectly shaped, salted pretzel conveniently placed next to meaty buffalo wings drenched in creamy blue cheese dressing.  ARE YOU KIDDING US?!  Do they really expect us to look at that, have a taste of one and then only eat 7 more?  C’mon.

As if that wasn’t enough guilt for one day, while on the way home we stopped at a rest stop where we had an unexpected candy craving.  I’m sure most of you can relate to this one.  Have you ever had a craving for chocolate and you thought to yourself “Mmm I could go for some M&M’s.”?  You find the nearest vending machine and press F5 for the delicious chocolaty rounds.  Well, the little bag of M’s that is dispensed for your pleasure is in fact one serving.  However, that one baby bag meant for a child is supposed to be enough to satisfy a full grown adult with a sweet tooth.  That’s not right, nor is it fair.  We walked away with one bag, forcing ourselves to share it to compensate for our previous over-indulgence.

We’re sure, like us, you’re probably pretty upset right now.  But don’t fret!  We found a solution! Buy the bag, dabble into it, and then immediately toss it out the window!  No no we’re kidding definitely don’t do that… the deer can’t be snacking on that crap.  The real solution is to make sure you tear the bag directly through nutrition label. Then you’ll never know how much a serving is and you’ll snack until you’re satisfied without feeling guilty.  Problem solved :)

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Prince Charming is that you?! …of course not.

21 Aug


The truth hurts.  As little girls we watched movies like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, etc.  Your average little lady (who happens to be stunning) stumbles upon prince charming (who always has a full head of hair and an even fuller wallet).  He rescues her, she bats her overly enhanced eyes at him, they fall in love, and live happily ever after.  How cute.  We grew up thinking the world was FULL of these magical, heroic princes waiting to scoop us up off the street, messy hair, acne, cellulite, and all, and love us for who we are until the end of time.  We planned weddings and envisioned our lives the way we had always dreamed they would be, with riches and sparkles and loooove…..and then life came along and smacked us in the face with a 2×4.

These deceptions are crafted from fairytales Disney created.  Beauty and the Beast for example:  A cutesy gal like Beauty actually falling for a grotesque oversized wolfman? No.  A grotesque oversized wolfman falling in love with a cutesy gal without eating her? No.  Movies are too bogus.  Lately, they only anger us.  They are 100% responsible for the 50% divorce rate in the United States.  YES.  We are holding them accountable.

If these guys truly existed where on Earth are they?!  This was a question we contemplated for a long time a few minutes.  The men of our dreams are stuck in movies and fairytales. We aren’t trying to be bitter, we just are.  Why? We watched the movie Love and Other Drugs last night.  SO predictable and even more RIDICULOUS.

1. How many women would tell a man who looks like Jake Gyllenhaal to NOT call them again after he surprised them with greasy Chinese takeout and confessed his love for them?

2. How many guys would throw their pride in the recycle trash bin, jump into their cars, and flee to find their woman without sending a heads up text first?

3.  How many couples videotape random parts of their relationship with black and white film, only to look back on the sentimental memories during a breakup and realize they made a mistake?

THE ANSWER IS ZERO!  These are all the things we wish would happen, but reality has it that they don’t.  So, we watch these movies that fill our minds with jellybeans which give us extreme anxiety and get us into arguments because… the fake movie crap doesn’t happen in our REAL lives.  What happens is REALity TV.  Our selections are derived from The Bachelorette (a bunch of drunken frat boys), Jerry Springer (men with no hair and empty wallets), Millionaire Matchmaker (our princes!…who happen to be narcissistic, snooty, prima donnas), and To Catch a Predator (no explanation needed).

Knowing what we know now, in order to avoid future heartbreak, we decided to turn off the TV and turn on the radio.  Nothing quite strikes the heart like a real love song….wait.  Ugh, we won’t even go there.

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Once a Star… Not Always a Star…

19 Aug



Three weeks into our diet and exercise regimen, our exercise was getting rather boring. As we thought about ways to switch it up a little, we took inventory of our athletic skills and decided that basketball would be a great way to burn calories in a workout that was more play than work.  After all, in high school one of us (Emilee) was an all-star 3-point shooter on the varsity team while the other (Jenna) landed the most improved player award at 7th grade basketball camp! (We all know what that award really means).

We knew of a little crappy basketball court down the street that was always deserted, so to switch up our workout routine and get daring we grabbed a ball, jumped in the car, and headed to the court.  As we pulled into the lot, we noticed a talented, Michael Jordan- like, athlete honing his skills.  Intimidated, we immediately turned our car right back around.  We knew we were good, but considering it had been a while since our ‘break-up’ with Wilson, we wanted our first dance with him to be a bit more private. So, we drove around the block stalking watching this kid, waiting for him to leave.

Finally, fingers crossed, rounding the corner of lap twelve, we noticed Michael had gone! Court to ourselves, YES!  So we rumbled into the gravel lot, parked, and jalked on over to the court.  “Let’s play H-O-R-S-E!” This was…. a great awful idea.  It was _ to _ for about 15 minutes.  We were starting to think the ball was too big for the hoop until one of us finally got a basket.  This was quite an accomplishment.  We clapped and cheered, threw in a few high fives…then immediately froze and looked around.  We didn’t need any witnesses, how embarrassing?

Because ‘H-O-R-S-E’ quickly turned into a game of ‘Fetch’ (seriously we were spending more time in the grass chasing air balls than on the court) we decided to pick our self-esteem off the pavement and consider “H-O-R-S-E” our warm up.  We decided to get our heads in the game and put our real skills to the test in a little game we like to call: One-on-One!  …And, welp, there are no words to even describe how THAT one ended.  We’ll leave that up to your imagination (be kind).  We guessed our “skills” were still locked away in the attic somewhere in our high school memory boxes, where they should probably lay to rest until the end of time.

We proved this statement to be true: “If you don’t use it you lose it.”  We lost it and will most likely never ever find it again. Ever.  Hey, we tried.  Our motto is as follows: If at first you don’t succeed…try, try, try again just give up.  Oh and… really just stick to your normal workout routine.  It’s for the best.

FEELIN’ LUCKY!

17 Aug

We bought Powerball tickets the other night.  It was up to 305 million dollars.  We thought, “Why not? After all we do have a .00001% chance of winning.” For some reason, when it comes to the lottery, those odds seem so much higher than .00000% which would be our chances of winning if we didn’t even buy a ticket at all! What is it about the lottery that makes us want to throw our money away?  You would never waltz into the bathroom, take out your wallet, debate a little, throw $10 into the bowl and flush it, would you?  THAT’s basically what you’re doing when you decide to take your high hopes to the nearest convenient store counter and confidently choose the winning ticket that will surely solve all of your problems and give you a reason to tell your boss to fly a kite.

You do realize that when playing the lottery, it’s really the only time you invite the odds to be on your side.  You would never want to be the 1 out of a million people who dies from a rare form of blueberry pox contracted from rooster sneezes passing through the air would you? Or be part of that tiny percentage of airplane passengers that end up going down after take-off?  You wouldn’t place a bet before walking out of your house during a thunderstorm in belief you’ll be the one to get struck by lightning would you?  The truth is, you have a better chance of being struck by an electric bolt from the sky then actually winning millions of dollars through the lotto system.  Sad right? And totally BOGUS!  Yet we collect our optimistic reveries and gamble on anyway!

Here’s some more food for thought: Did you know that guessing the consecutive numbers ‘1 2 3 4 5 6 ’ is just as effective as guessing the random numbers ‘ 8 43 15 37 9 26 ’?  Well it is.  That being said, you should probably stop coming up with specific magical numbers you pulled from your birth date, your high school sports jersey, your personalized license plate and your total number of adopted cats.  Those numbers got you NOWHERE before- they will continue to get you nowhere now, in the future, or ever.  So make it a real hit and run and have the computer select the numbers for you.

Plus, do you know how rare it is to actually have that kind of good luck?  The kind of luck to win loads of cash with presidents’ faces you wouldn’t even recognize.   You also have to realize people measure ‘good luck’ on a very broad scale.  Some people might think getting 3 green lights in a row is lucky, or getting the closest parking spot to the door is lucky.    Others believe if free hotdogs are being given out at the local Auto Zone it’s definitely their lucky day (especially if they were hungry).  Doesn’t everyone play the lotto when “they’re feelin’ lucky?”  Does this actually make any sense?  If luck is rare, and you already had your lucky moments for the day… why on Earth would you think that playing the lottery would be in your favor as well?

Shouldn’t you play the lottery when you’re having the worst day ever?  If all of your BAD luck is exhausted throughout the day, the chances of having a small amount of luck are at least higher at this point, right?  WE would play the lottery on a day we burnt our poppy seed breakfast bagels, received a speeding ticket for going 37mph in a 35mph zone, split open the butt of our jeans bending over for a can of creamed corn at the grocery store, got stuck sitting next to loud-mouthed Larry on a 6hr bus trip to Boson, ran into our exes looking like we just rolled out of bed or pulled a back muscle vacuuming the house.

HOWEVER, after getting hit in the face with all of this factual information, society will continue taking their chances filling in those little circles with the numbers from last night’s fortune cookie in hopes of becoming a millionaire and ALAS, obtaining financial freedom!! Who cares if you’re spending your kid’s lunch money on a lost battle…somebody has to win!

That being said, today is our dad’s birthday! SO- Happy Birthday DAD!  We bought you some lotto tickets!  Good Luck! :)

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SURPRISE!

13 Aug


We have a love/hate relationship with surprise birthday parties.  The irony behind a surprise is that it’s really only appreciated when it’s expected.  Being caught off guard, put in the spotlight and then being expected to smile and act surprised is SO MUCH PRESSURE!  Especially, if you’re having a bad hair day and decided to wear your ratty sweatpants.  Perhaps you thought you’d be spending alone time with your movies and your withering self-esteem, but weren’t YOU sadly mistaken?!

Most surprise occasions will play out like this: all of the ‘friends’ of the surprisee showered, did their hair, picked out the perfect outfit and of course remembered their cameras while YOU unfortunately looked like you just walked home from the soup kitchen.  It’s like “Hey! Surprise!  Today we’re celebrating you, but FIRST we’re going to make you feel like crap.”  And you know you’re no actor, so pretending like you’re not completely mortified is a struggle.  Does anyone even really care that you survived a whole 365 days without dying?  Are they actually that happy that you were born so many years ago and still haven’t amounted to anything?  Humans are competitive.  Surprise parties are designed to make those who are self-conscious become even more suicidal. They can’t stand that today is YOUR day of birth.  So what do they do?  They get themselves all dolled up, so that even though you are the center of attention, they can feel good knowing they look better than you and can confidently mingle amongst the crowd.  Meanwhile, you’re darting to the bathroom, acting as MacGyver, trying to give yourself a makeover using toilet paper, Aspirin, Vaseline and band-aides. Fail…

There are, however, times when you would welcome a surprise party.  You have this feeling, this small glimmer of hope, which leads you to believe that today is the day.  Today is the day of your surprise!  Your face is pimple-free, you fit into an outfit that hasn’t fit you in months, and your smile is starting to really sparkle ever since you bought that new teeth-whitening mouthwash!  It’s the week of your birthday and your friends have invited you over for a ‘cookout’ which, in your mind, translates into your SURPRISE PARTY!  All excited, you do your hair, put on your best outfit, and head over to your friend’s house pretending that you have no idea what could be going on.  The wide smile that’s spread across your face in anticipation of bright flashing cameras catching the surprise slowly starts to fade when you show up to 3 of your friends, a plate of burnt chicken and a crying baby.  Whose baby is that?!  And where is my birthday present?!  Again, you’re no actor so pretending like you’re not totally disheartened is a struggle.  Crushed, you grab a piece of corn on the cob and take a seat.  While everyone continues their conversation about the tomatoes from the local farmers’ market, you sit quietly holding on to a little suspicion, thinking a cake could definitely still be coming soon.  When you realize the only dessert is a Jell-O mold in the shape of the United States you officially feel silly for thinking the day was going to be about you, and even sillier for having your ‘thank you’ speech folded and tucked safely in your back pocket.

Clearly, planning surprises should either be completely avoided or there should always be that one person in your life who is the designated SSS aka the Secret Surprise Spoiler.  The SSS doesn’t share any specific details, just gives the surprisee a little heads up as to what is about to come so they can run a comb through their hair, wash their face, and ditch their paint stained attire.

Who doesn’t just love a surprise? We don’t, unless the surprise would be receiving an envelope full of money in our mailbox. In that case, all inquiries should be sent to scarpinosisters@gmail.com.  We can absolutely hook you up with our mailing address free of charge.

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