Two Step

If you've been reading a while, you know I have a mild obsession with the Dave Matthews Band. Also, you might remember this post, in which I lamented the fact that we couldn't see him in his yearly Houston concert because we were trying to save money, buy a house and dig ourselves out of ridiculous credit card debt (check, check and check, thank you).

I found out Monday night that SK and I will indeed be attending this year's DMB concert in the Woodlands on May 1 (squeeeee!!!!) and in honor of this discovery, I invite you to participate in a short game. Come play!

Using only song titles from one artist (I choose Dave), cleverly answer these questions.

1. Are you a male or female: “Dream Girl”

2. Describe yourself: “So Much to Say”

3. How do you feel about yourself: “So Damn Lucky”

4. Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriend: “Dodo”

5. Describe your current boy/girl situation: “The Best of What’s Around”

6. Describe your current location: “Typical Situation”

7. Describe where you want to be: “Dancing Nancies”

8. Your best friend is: “Don’t Drink the Water” …he he ;)

9. Your favorite color is: “Grey Blue Eyes”

10. You know that: you “Pay For What You Get”

11. What’s the weather like: “Crazy”

12. If your life was a television show what would it be called: “If I Had It All”

13. What is life to you: “Reconcile Our Differences”

14. What is the best advice you have to give: “You Might Die Trying”

15. If you could change your name what would you change it to: “Rapunzel” ;)

Update

Well...this is awkward...

I know, I know. I whine and cry about no one leaving me comments and then I run away for a MONTH and stop posting. My bad. I'm sorry. I'm done falling off the wagon (on more than just blogging...more on that later) and I am back. Thanks for all the lovely comments on my whiny "where did you all go?" post, by the way. You guys rock and never fail to boost my ego and make my head swell to approximately 4x's it's normal size. Hugs and smooches to all ;)

So I got sick and was out of commission starting the 5th. I've FINALLY been able to make it through the whole night without waking up every 2 hours, coughing violently, panicked that I was going to die because I couldn't take a solid breath IN. SK would roll over towards me, grumble a little about being woken up AGAIN, but calm me down and rub my back until I fell asleep again. Neither of us were much fun last week.

I have lots of posts in the works. Here are some teasers to tide you over:

It's been 3 years since I went on the best (and last, I HOPE) first date of my life. To celebrate, he bought me awesome electronics. I bought him a book. Fail on my part.

Little Brother graduated from Air Force boot camp. Our uncle, The Colonel, presided over the ceremony. My brother is now wearing pants that fit him. For the first time in his life.

SK turned 30. BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Miss Thang the Queen turned 1. Less BAHAHA and more YAY for her.

I saw the Broadway production of Legally Blonde. It was AWESOME.

Tahoe vacation coming up soon. Should have more time to post then. I know, I know...my logic is insanely backwards - blogging while on vacation? Usually that's when people take some time off, right? Not this girl. I am so pumped for the extra free time, I can hardly stand it.

See ya soon, homies.

Where is the (comment) love?

I am going through comment withdrawal. For a while there, I had a pretty solid rhythm going - publish a post, a few people read the blog, I check back obsessively and be THRILLED when I see comments on said post, then post again.

My last 4 or 5...nothin'. I am bummed. Where did you guys go? Please come back. I have cookies...

I am kind of a crappy commenter myself, though. I am more of a "lurker," and get so wrapped up in clicking from blog to blog, I completely forget to take the time to comment on anything. I need to get better at actually saying something thoughtful when I stop by someone's place and read a while. I promise to try and get better at that.

On top of the commentless posts, I woke up sick today. Feels like I got hit by a bus, sick. I came home early from work, which never happens (seriously - I have worked through severe strep throat before...you're welcome, office mates), but even my boss told me I looked like shit. I'll thank him for that next time I see him. With a round-house kick to the FACE.

So I came home and laid on the couch all afternoon, getting up once to participate in a scheduled conference call with a high-maintenance client. Something told me an e-mail to her at noon saying, "sorry, can we reschedule? I have the sniffles," wouldn't have gone over well. Actually, an e-mail at noon saying, "sorry, can we reschedule? I'm actually dead," wouldn't have swayed her either. So I made it to the call, spouted off a few intelligent things (and a few unintelligible things I'm sure, as I was a little high on cold medicine by then) and then crashed back into the sofa.

The whole afternoon, Bella paced anxiously by the open back door, barking ferociously at everything on the other side of the backyard fence. She also kept coming over and would put her cold nose on my hot forehead and lick my cheeks before laying down on the rug right in front of me. This isn't normal behavior for her, so I am going to assume she was being protective because she knew I felt bad and SK wasn't home.

I have migrated to the bedroom, and am now lying under covers, shivering and trying to find a comfortable position to lie in. Really, I hate being sick.

I'll be back in a few days, when this has blown over. Cough cough. See you soon, internets. Is anyone out there?

Personalized Fruit Roll-ups

Y'all remember Fruit Roll-Ups! Show me a kid who HASN'T wrapped a whole fruit roll-up around their pointer finger and licked on that bad boy for a half and hour on the playground, and I will show you a kid who hasn't LIVED.

SuZ at Not Your Typical Mommy is having a sweet giveaway involving fruit roll-ups of the personalized variety. I suggest you go check her out and get in on this action. How cool would a personalized fruit roll-up be?? I am thinking it would be a cute way to send save-the-dates. Although, there would be the problem of actually REMEMBERING the date after you ate the tasty mailer...

Incidentally, Fruit Roll-Ups almost led me down a twisted road, into a life of crime. A strawberry fruit roll-up from Stater Bros. in Highland, CA was the first thing I ever shoplifted. I actually swore them off for about 4 years. True story.

I was with my mom, I was 6, I saw a fruit roll-up (individually packaged, not the whole box) and grabbed it. I carried it with me through the store, gripped it in my little hand through the checkout line and realized that I had forgotten to mention to my mom that I wanted it when she loaded me in the car. Seeing the hot roll-up in my hand, she yanked me back out of the car, swatted my tiny behind and marched me back into the store to apologize for taking it. I was a snotty, blubbering mess of a child on the car ride home and was so mortified that I wouldn't even so much as LOOK at fruit roll-up in the grocery store for years after that, so as not to be tempted again.

Now, 20 years later, I am advertising them on my blog. If I win, I will totally personalize the roll with "WARNING - MAY LEAD TO STICKY FINGERS." You guys will know what I'm talkin' 'bout.

Weekends should come on Thursday

Arrive home from work to a sweet boyfriend waiting with wine and good music. Talk about the past 12 hours spent apart, then crawl into bed.


Wake up in the morning, run into a warm shower and walk back into the bedroom to be greeted by the happiest, most comfortable dog in the world.


Resist urge to immediately get back into bed.

Hot Fuzz

Because he turns 30 this year, SK thought it was time to make some big changes. In related news, he trusts me with clippers near his head.

Of course it is...

I have recently become pretty obsessed with DIY projects and redecorating our house. Yeah, I know that the combination of "DIY" and "home redecoration" might inspire feelings of vomitous horror in some. For me, though, I think handmade stuff adds character and can really warm up a house. Also, I like for people to have interesting and unique stuff to look at and play with when they come over for dinner and a night of Wii.

I saw an ad somewhere for this book and immediately went out and bought it and spent a solid 3 hours at home that same night, curled up on the couch with it, planning design schemes for the rooms we didn't touch when we moved into the house in May.

Did I mention that? We moved into the house in May, repainted the whole (almost) inside of the thing, and have decorated our rooms according to the original color pallettes we chose. Now I am itching to get the untouched rooms done. And possibly redo some of the finished ones. I know, I know - SK agrees with you - I AM SO WEIRD.

Along with the book came a free subscription to the magazine and I sent the voucher in the very next day, super stoked and feeling like I was getting such a great deal. I have been anxiously awaiting my first issue.

Today, I read this:

On the heels of House & Garden and Blueprint, Domino is folding, according to today's WWD. The March issue will be the last.

OF FREAKING COURSE IT WOULD BE FOLDING NOW!!

via A Cup of Jo

Banished

Last night Deborah and I went out.  We wanted to get out of our houses for the evening and we haven't actually had a legit Girl's Night since before she had Queen Ryan.  We wanted to go to a bar and gossip and drink and have a good time.

And have a good time, we did.  We went to a friend's house for a while and then went to a little dive bar near Deborah's house.  We ran into a few of she and SK's friends from high school and drank a lot of beer and made fun of other people in the bar, as per usual when she and I get together.  We talked and caught up and really, it was so nice to be out with her.

I got home about 2am, not drunk, but ready to crawl into bed next to SK.  He has been coaching a soccer tournament and had another game early this morning, so I knew he had gone to bed long before I got home.  I walked in, took off my heels so as not to make a ton of noise walking through the house, grabbed a glass of water, some Advil, and headed to our bedroom.  I turned the doorknob, already imagining how wonderful it was going to be to get into the warm bed and fall asleep.

What the hell?

The door was locked.

WHAT THE HELL??

SK has a habit of locking the bedroom door when we go to bed.  Not sure why, considering we lock the front and backdoor and activate the alarm before we go to sleep, but he does.  It's a habit I have learned to live with, but it's a little annoying.

Especially when I am unable to get into my bed because of it.

Luckily, there was some clean laundry in the dryer, which meant I was able to change out of my smokey bar clothes and into some pajamas before laying down on the COUCH and falling asleep to Planet Earth on the TV.

Really?  The couch?  In my own house??

Thankfully, SK woke up about 3:30am and realized I wasn't in bed.  He got up to look for me, to make sure I had actually made it home, and found me asleep in the living room.  He woke me up and apologized profusely for locking me out.  

The walk to the bedroom is a bit hazy, and I vaguely remember him climbing into bed next to me, still apologizing for locking the the door.  I do, however, strongly remember rolling over, looking right at him, and telling him to SUCK IT.

TV Nights

I like to say that I'm not a big TV person. I like to say that "I don't watch too many TV shows because I have so many other things going on and don't have time." Clearly, I also like to lie a lot. It's not that I don't watch TV often, because I do. I watch TV at the gym when I am working out. If we don't have music playing in the house while we're cooking or cleaning or just hanging out, we have the TV on. We fall asleep regularly to sounds of John Stewart or Stephen Colbert or more recently, the high-pitched chatter of Drinky Crow, of The Drinky Crow Show fame. I say we don't watch much TV because we don't just sit and zone out and go potato on the couch - we multitask while programs are on.

SK and I are loyal to a few shows. We ty to catch our favorites real-time, but pretty much everything else, we just DVR. God Bless DVR. I haven't watched a commercial for Viagra or Cialis in I don't know how long and really, I don't know how I lived without this modern marvel.

One of our favorite shows is LOST (and yes, it deserves all caps, shut up). Have you seen it? If not, then where the hell have you been for the last 4 years?? Seriously, this show is phenomenal. It's successfully both very entertaining and ridiculously frustrating all at the same time, and the episodes feel like puzzles you have to try and solve. Everyone who I talk to about it who has never seen it is like, "isn't it about a magic island that has polar bears and a monster made of smoke and a button?" And to those hilariously stupid sounding questions I say, YES, yes it is. Have any of my questions been answered? Um...not all, but some. And by some I mean like, 2. But I know the writers plan to wrap it all up neatly by the end of the series, which will last 2 more seasons, meaning they have approximately 24-48 (those would be awesomely long seasons) hours to sort all this stuff out. I don't know if i will be able to stand it. It's coming back tonight and I. Am. Stoked.

Also, I watch Grey's Anatomy. I've watched it for 3 (?) years - no clue what season we're in here (what is WITH the time line on that show, by the way??) - and have always been pretty happy with the story lines and characters, until this season. Seriously? Dead Denny ghost sex? I loved Denny, but this season is really ruining that for me. GO AWAY AND BE DEAD.

Since we live so close to a lot of our friends now, we started doing Thursday TV nights. We rotate houses each week and cook dinner and the girls watch Grey's while the guys watch The Office and 30 Rock. How very suburbanite of us, I know. But it's fun and I love spending a weeknight curled up next to my best girlfriends, passing a bottle of wine back and forth while getting totally into a girly TV drama. Thursday nights are easily my favorite night of the work week.

(No?) Thanks to some prodding by Mama Kat, I have also started watching The Bachelor. I have been proud to boast that before last week, I had never seen an episode of the Bachelor or the Bachelorette, and really, I never understood the appeal. 25 girls/guys vying for the love of one sad soul who had to whore themselves out on national television to score dates and "true love?" That actually sounds like it would be pretty entertaining, but I have heard that the perspective suitors are not actually allowed to fight to the death, so boo on that. Grudgingly, I sat down and watched Jason, the decently cute-faced yet TOTALLY HOT-BODIED single dad get down to business with a bunch of ladies that all wanted him to be their future baby-daddy.

Oh. My. God. The show is terrible in ways I had never imagined, but much like a car wreck, I just can't look away. Aside from all the catty bitching and shit-talking, there are some serious head-cases and weirdos.

First, there is Stalker Shannon:

She knows EVERYTHING about Jason, which immediately creeped me out and now I find myself cringing when I see them alone together because I know she is going to spout off some random factoid about him like how she knows what his mom's sister's husband's brother's name is or how she knows Jason flosses his teeth with organically manufactured string from the depths of Brazil and wouldn't you know? She has some right here for him and actually had 7 cases of the stuff delivered to his house, waiting for him when he gets home and she'll totally help him use it and doesn't this prove she loves him? Because SHE SO LOVES HIM. Um...right. She loves him like serial killers love their victims right before they cut out their heart to carry around in a little box with them forever and ever. Gross and scary? Yeah, so is Shannon. Also, her teeth? HUGE.

Meet Sharon:


Sharon, being the responsible adult that she is, gave up "everything" to be here on this show. She quit her job and left her family to come meet a guy she doesn't know in the hopes that he falls desperately in love with her. I don't know about Jason (well, actually I do, because her broke-ass got axed on the first or second show), but to me, especially in today's economy, a person who voluntarily quits a stable job to risk it all on a stranger with no actual back-up plan should said stranger not return the feelings, just SCREAMS mature and solid marriage-material to me. Also, homegirl looked kind of busted the night they all met. Just sayin'.

Oh, Megan:


I cannot WAIT for someone to beat this bitch down. Really, this show would be so much more interesting if they could fight and not be sent home for whoopin' someone's butt.

There was also a girl with vision boards who was like, 47, and some chick that got so wasted on the first night she admitted to being engaged 13 times previous to this experience. Too-tan Natalie went home this week (I love that she got so pissed about it she seriously told Jason to fuck off and then got all huffy that he didn't find her interesting because to reject her is like rejecting your sexuality and you'd totally have to be GOD to do that), as did Sweet Jesus, Don't Hug Me with Your Man-Arms Erica.

I already have favorites (Melissa, Lauren, and possibly Jillian, but I am still undecided about her), which obviously means I will be watching the rest of the season. Sigh. I don't know who Deanna is, but apparently I am supposed to be excited/nervous that she is coming (back?) to "shake things up." Really, I just hope she is scrappy enough to knock Shannon and Megan out of the house forever.

Bachelor, I think I love you, and that's what I was afraid of.

And finally, doesn't Lisa look just like a Who?


I thought so.

2009 - Year of the Photo

For Christmas in 2006 (I think...? Might have been my bday in '07...) SK bought me a fancy digital camera that was super cute and took great pictures and was small enough to fit nicely in whatever purse or clutch I chose to use for the night.

It also was small enough to fall out of my purse, unnoticed, while on the flight from Houston to Las Vegas in February of '08.

Cute Camera was never recovered. Sad for me, but likely happy for Cute Camera as I would imagine it is now a possession of some bubbly flight attendant who takes it on all her international adventures, so Cute Camera is hopefully seeing way more cool shit with Bubbly Flight Attendant that it would have if it had lived a long and not as exciting life with me.

Don't cry for me, though, dear Internet. While much of 2008 went undocumented (save for pictures taken via camera-phone) for SK and I, we have now rectified the issue and bought ourselves a fancy-schmancy new DSLR that I am so in love with, it's a little ridiculous. I am learning to use all the different features and my passion for photography has been revived.

I took a photojournalism class in high school, and then a few more photo classes in college, but the hobby died out when I graduated and started working full-time. I am working to make time for it again and am trying to get better at looking at things creatively - I am back into photography, and I am super stoked.

This year, I have already taken something like 500 pictures, which is awesome, but since I am so busy snapping away, I haven't had time to get them organized on the computer, or up here on The Blog. THAT, I fear, will take much more time and discipline than I care to think about right now. I have gotten a few loaded on, though, so here you go - enjoy!

Grandpa and The Queen. We had a bbq at our house the day after Christmas so that GiGi (SK's g-ma), who was visiting from St. Louis, could see our house. This is my favorite picture of the day.

Me, Keith and Chandra on New Year's Eve. Again, party at our house. This is before things started to get really wild. And, yes, I know that if I am IN the picture it is highly unlikely that I TOOK the picture, but this was a product of the new camera, so shut up.

Uncle SK and Queenie. She came by to say hello on NYE, too. I bought her that outfit, ps.

Keith and SK, in our living room. This was just a random night over the holiday break. Keith looks drunk. SK looks smug. Both everyday looks for them.

And again, here is Miss Bella. As if you haven't seen enough of her already. Just a warning - lots more of The Dog to come in 2009.