Tuesday smiles

I pretty much think our niece is the most adorable little girl in the world. I dare you to disagree.

What a wonderful world...except not for Bambi

Ahhh.  What a life I have.  I am lying in bed, covered up with my fluffy comforter, watching Anthony Bourdain, Bella curled up next to me.  

Oh yeah, can't forget the sweet fact that I am also capable of BEING CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET while in this ridiculously comfortable position.  

I am totally bragging, I know.  I try not to do it often, though.  And I am just so flippin' stoked about my new computer - I really can't help myself, and I'm sorry.

However, lest you think I am just living an insanely charmed life full of "xoxo's" and sugar and spice and everything nice, let me assure you that all is not completely right with my chi ("you're fucking up my chi" - name that movie).  

SK is out tonight.  Not that that is a big deal.  We have our own lives and go out without the other.  It keeps us sane and balanced and ultimately serves as a reminder of how much we both like to have the other around.  So he's out.  I'm not whining.  He will be out all night.  He will be out until probably sometime around 1 or 2pm tomorrow, at which time he will return to the house tired, smelly and maybe a little bit more wild and manly.  Why, you ask?

SK is hunting.

HUNTING.

He is on his way to get up before sunrise and shoot stuff.  

My world has just been flipped upside down.

Now, I am not an advocate for the NRA or anything, but I am not against hunting.  I think that if it's your thing, then it's your thing.  As long as you do it legally and aren't wasteful with the animals you hunt, you and I are square.  It's just not something I ever in a million years imagined SK being interested in.

Just goes to show ya that even after living with a person for a few years and thinking you know everything about them, they can still shock the hell out of you.

I am afraid that this first hunting trip is going to be like getting a tattoo - once you've experienced it, you don't want to stop.  You crave the sensation and dream of the next time you'll get to feel it again.  I am afraid that he will come home and start to have fantasies of being in the woods, chasing a deer down and doing it in with his bare hands, wearing nothing but a loincloth.  

Do me a favor tonight, Internet; say a little prayer to whatever higher power you dig that SK makes it home ok and intact.  My neighbor, the instigator of this whole event, is an experienced hunter and promised to keep him safe and not let him shoot his eye out.  I told him he better because having SK in the hospital for the next few days would really fuck up my New Year's Eve plans.

Off we go, into the wild blue yonder...

I appreciate all the comment love I have gotten this week, via SITS.  You all really made me feel special and although I have been a jerk and haven't yet visited all of you in return, know that I will.  This week is about catching up on the replies and paying it forward by visiting more blogs.  

I have spent this week hanging out with family and enjoying the break from work.  I get back into my regular routine tomorrow, with a quick break mid-week for our New Year's Eve party.  We're expecting anywhere from 20 to 40ish people, so I'll report back about THAT on Thursday or Friday.  Hopefully, I will even remember to use my snazzy new camera and I will have pictures to post.  Not like last night, when I completely forgot to bust it out and capture some memories.

My younger brother, Vinny, left for boot camp today.  He will be joining the Air Force, and I am so proud of him.  We threw him a going-away party last night at my parent's house and it was a great success.  Most of our best friends from high school were there, minus a few that were out of state or sick.  People I haven't seen in years showed up to see Vinny off and wish him well on his newest adventure.  He had a great time and was stoked to see so many friends.  

A great night with family and friends.  Lots of fun and laughter.  The last night with my little brother, the civilian, before he returns my little brother, the Airman.  Not a single effing photo.  

Sometimes, I suck real bad. 

Merry Christmas, ya'll

I am blogging from my very new, VERY cool MacBook, courtesy of SK.  It was a huge surprise, since I thought I knew the big gifts we were exchanging - a new camera to share and a Garmin navigation thingy for each of us.  He bought the MacBook for me weeks ago and hid it at a friend's house so I wouldn't accidentally find it at home.  Thanks, SK!  I love you long time.

I hope all of you have a great day with your families and enjoy the holiday.  Merry Christmas!

Snowy snow snow

Not TODAY, unfortunately.

These are photos from last week's snow fest! It coated everything (except the ground) and turned the outside white for a few hours. I doubt it will snow again anytime soon, considering today it was 70 degrees out, but a girl can dream.

Probably the only time in my life (in TX) that we will have a roof that resembles snow-peaked mountains. See the snowflakes in the air?? I was so stoked.

Here is our back patio furniture, with a good inch or so of icy powder covering it all. Our chairs don't match. Whatever. Don't judge me.

Here is Bella being freaked out by the snow, but not so freaked out that she won't try a bite. Nom nom nom.

Aaaaaand here is Bella, trying to get the fuck out of Dodge. She'd had enough and was looking at me like I was insane for wanting to be outside with the camera. I could call her a wimp, but in her defense I DID have socks on.

Early Christmas

So I am still totally on a high from being chosen as a Saucy Blogger this week. Tiffany and Heather, you chicks are awesome and have given me such a sweet Christmas gift! Also, you have given me a huge head.

I have a bunch of people leaving me comment love and I even have a Follower now! Good Lord, I am going to be a mess next week when the traffic slows down and things return to normal. So don't leave me, ok? I promise you can all come to my birthday party if you be my friends and hang out regularly.

In the meantime, I figure I will try and post something each day. It's a habit I'd like to get into anyway, so the knowledge that more people than usual are venturing over to take a peek just gives me the extra kick I need to get going.

Since SK bought me a fancy new camera as an early Christmas gift, I'll share some photos. Photos don't chain me to my computer, but allow me to crank out a post with some substance (and also lets me play with Photoshop, which SK bought for me as well). I've been trying to get the hang of the different settings and have failed miserably at digging deep into my brain and yanking out some of that photography knowledge I collected while in high school and college. I took more than a few photography classes over those 8 years, but clearly, nothing stuck. I can however, remember how to develop a photo in a darkroom. I could probably still unload my film in a pitch black closet, too. I got skills.


I also have pretty flowers in my guest bathroom and streaks on my mirror because we usually have one or two friends stay the night each weekend and I am more concerned with keeping the toilet clean for their visits than I am with making sure the mirrors are toothpaste-free. Mental note: buy Windex.


This is Bella. You might have read about her HERE or HERE or maybe HERE. She's a little skittish, a lot hyper and a major drooler, but we love her and think she's pretty cool. She's also become a play-thing for our neice, Ryan, so that's good news. Bella's not a baby-biter.

Thanks, Bella.

One more day of work before Christmas. I am SO thrilled. This has been a long year and I am lookng forward to a few days off to decompress and not think about project timelines and invoicing and meetings. Be back tomorrow.

Peace out, fools.

I'm Saucy!

How surprised was I to check in on my little blog today and find that I had 16 people comment on my last post?!

That NEVER happens to me.

I have maybe 4 people read my blog regularly, and they're either family members or good friends, so to have 4 times the traffic come through in one day? I am thrilled!

Thanks to SITS, people now know I exist. SITS, you girls rock ;)

Welcome to my small corner of the Internet. Kick off your shoes, grab a drink, and stay for a while. You might find an F-word in a post or two...just know you've been warned. Come back sometime soon! I'd love to see ya'll again.

Here are a few of my favorite posts:

How I ended up in Texas

Happiness

Meet Bella

Sometimes, I'm an idiot

Thanks again, SITS! So happy today!!

Would you capture it, or just let it slip? YO.

Last Christmas Eve while at church with SK's family, Deborah and I got busted for laughing at the bell choir. We got the giggles - you know the kind - and had to turn away from each other in the pew because we were both on the brink of either wetting ourselves, or dying from asphyxiation because we couldn't breathe. We got the stink-eye from Sue, as she thought we were laughing at people coming back down the aisle after taking Communion, but even she chuckled a little when we told her - after the service, when we could speak again - what we had been so hysterical about.

Over the last few months, I have found a few videos on YouTube that have put the bell choir to shame and this is me, right now, admitting that I would absolutely NOT be able to contain myself if forced to sit in on these services and I would surely die from laughing right in my seat and then likely go straight and directly to Hell.

Turn up your speakers and sit back and enjoy. Things get REALLY insane at 4:07.

10 Days

So it's a week a half 'til Christmas and do I have everything under control this year, or what?

Um...what?

Yeah. Our presents are not all bought and wrapped, although we've started, which is a big deal for me as usually I am not out and looking until December 23rd (or later) and so typically you get a little Cheryl Road Rage wrapped up with that cute pajama set you're ripping open on Christmas morning.

We have, however, totally decked the SHIT out of our halls.

The weekend after Thanksgiving we got to work on putting up the Christmas lights, we bought a tree, and we pulled in the boxes of decorations and Christmafied the living room and kitchen.

Last year, we purchased a pre-lit artificial tree for the apartment. We thought it would be easier to deal with and we weren't really sure how Bella would react to a tree in the living room, considering she ate everything alive on our balcony. Turns out, the dog couldn't have cared less about the tree and was actually more put out that it took up the sunniest spot in the living room for a month and could usually be found scrunched up into a little ball, lying underneath it in a pathetic attempt to keep her nose in the rays of sunshine coming through the sliding door. This year, I wanted to get a real tree for the living room, and I thought it would be nice to put the fake tree in the bay window at the front of the house, for all passersby to see and admire.

Bella apparently remembered her sunshine-stealing nemisis and behaved this year just as she did last year.


Clearly, we use our treadmill A LOT. Whatever. Don't judge. We've actually moved the tree onto a box and pulled the treadmill forward so that it's usable again, but still, it sits motionless.

And as I claimed in this post, here are photos of some of the ornaments I made last year.

I want to have an ornament to document all of our Christmas' together. We were together in '06, but not cohabiting, so technically 2007 marks the first year.

This one is a large, clear glass ball, filled with sparkly red ribbons. I wrote "Believe" on the glass with gold paint.

This is a small, gold glass ball with gold, purple and red stripes running around it. The stripes are made out of glitter, which I usually despise, but actually had a lot of fun with last year. I have a few other glittery ones hanging on the tree.

I am a big fan of swirls and loops and pretty much any design that is non-uniform and whimsical. This is silver glitter paint on a small, clear glass ball. These were my favorite to make.

I haven't had a chance to make any new ones this year, but I will get around to it this weekend. I have a few ideas in mind so along with baking cookies and making oreo balls and finishing Christmas shopping this weekend, I will try to squeeze in an hour or so of ornament decorating.

Is it just me, or do the days get shorter as we get closer to Christmas?

White Christmas?

It snowed in Houston last night.

SNOWED.

As in, real little flecks of frozen water floated down from the sky and landed on things, creating a thin little blanket of chilly white goodness all over the city.

It was amazing.

Pictures coming soon. I got a new camera (yayhooray!) as an early Christmas gift from SK and I snapped some shots last night. The dog was appropriately freaked out, our patio furniture was covered in snow, and even this morning driving into work I saw trucks with beds full of the stuff.

Of course, today it's supposed to get up to about 70, and I doubt the snow will come again before December 25th, but for a few hours last night, it was definitely beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

How you know you're not cool

"Crank Dat" by Soulja Boy comes on and every pre-tween around you goes nuts.

You have no idea what the song is and how they all know the dance. Does MTV still play music videos?

The next song to come on is a song by NSync, when they were in their prime. You brace yourself for the inevitable hysteria.

No one bats an eyelash.

Holy shit. How old am I?!