Like, for serious...

So the weekend was - are you ready for this? - a total fucking blast. I think I was just in a MOOD last week when I wrote the doom and gloom post about going out of town. My bad.

We road tripped it out of town on Friday afternoon, which is always a good time. The drive to New Orleans (did I mention it was in New Orleans? And that this was the 5th year anniversary of Katrina? You could definitely feel it in the air. A little spooky.) is about 6ish hours from Houston and I was in the car with 4 other girls, 2 of whom I hadn't seen in a few months, so it was really nice to catch up. We pulled into town, checked into our hotel (The W on Poydras...so f'ing nice) and then took our happy asses down to Bourbon Street to meet up with the bachelorette and the rest of the party. We finally strolled back to the hotel at about 5am.


We had brunch the next morning at Little Dizzy's, which, FYI, if you ever go to NO and someone says "meet us at Little Dizzy's!" make sure they clarify WHICH Little Dizzy's they mean, because apparently there are 2 and one of those 2 is really f'ing far from The W and it will take a $20 cab ride for you to correct your mistake. Just so you know.


Being the type of girls we all are, I'll just say that we were feeling NO PAIN when we walked out of brunch at 1:15pm. After a quick lingerie shower back at the hotel, a few Patron shots with some random Minnesota dudes who were in town for a bachelor party, and a cab ride I don't quite remember, we were back on Bourbon, ready to party. Hurricanes at Pat O'Briens were requested by the bachelorette and more than one of the girls ended up walking out of that bar a little doused in red drink.

Speaking of red...because of the early start (which inevitably leads to an early finish), no one ended up wearing the red dresses we all brought (wtf). A group of us took the bachelorette and a few other poor souls back to the hotel around 7pm to pass out for the night. After we got them in bed, it was back out for us, but we stuck to the lobby bar where the bartender generously gifted us with bottomless beers...for free. After dinner at Harrah's (Hurrah's!!) we were in bed by about midnight.

I didn't take my camera, but a few of the other girls did and when they post them on FB I will steal some and put them up here. I can only imagine what they will look like.

We got back into town at 5pm on Sunday after taking THE LONGEST DETOUR EVER up highway 90 because of a 100 gallon diesel spill on I-10, which STILL has the highway around Beaumont closed, by the way. Yeah, 2 days later. Driving is not that hard, people - Start at Point A, get to Point B, don't hit shit. I don't get it.

So I was home right in time for the Emmy's, which I totally enjoyed, and btw - when did Jimmy Fallon get HOT? I mean, woah. I think that dude might have just earned himself a spot in my Top 5. I am sure he'll be stoked to know that ;) I loved a majority of the dresses, but I think my absolute favorite was Claire Danes. She looked beautiful and totally beach babe California with her tan and blond hair. But her acceptance speech for Temple Grandin? "Well thank you HBO, like for serious. Thank you for like, existing." Was she channeling Angela Chase? I get that maybe she was trying to be endearing and come off as surprised and genuine, but to me, she sounded not at all shocked and way too nonchalant. In interviews I have seen, she is so articulate, and on Sunday, she was not. Annoying.

Also, Lea Michele's hair? I want it.

Via

Happy Tuesday, suckers. Just 3 more work days til the 3-day weekend! Who's excited??

~ Random ~

Doesn't this picture make you think of the wish dragon from The Neverending Story (one of my fave movies, btw)? I love it ;)


photos via

Think Thin Thursday **Updated**

Last week I posted about how SK and I are working hard to lose the poundage we've acquired in the last few years - thanks for the supportive comments! It really is incredibly hard for me to stay motivated, especially since I am a "need results RIGHT NOW" type gal. Meaning, I've worked out for a few weeks, why haven't I lost 15 lbs? Irrational? I know. However, I still want to SEE something for all the hard work I've been putting in.

Quick aside - If you're at all like me, when you decided you liked my blog you went back through and read my archives. If you're NORMAL, then you haven't, which means you haven't read THIS and likely don't know why I am a freak and don't just use my husband's name in my posts. I am thinking I might just say fuck it and start using his name. I love his name. Opinions?

Ok, back to the issue at hand - my total and utter lack of motivation.

I need to stay motivated and I can think of no better way than to continually announce to the world that I am working out and eating right. It sounds cheesy, but I am really grasping at straws, here dudes. It's a way for me to feel accountable, and I think it will work. So I welcome you to Think Think Thursday (I think I need a button for this...any volunteers? Or anyone who can tell me how the hell to make one? ***I have a button!!*** Now, how the fuck do other people grab it?), where I will be posting motivational shit every week in an effort to keep my fat ass on the weight-loss track. Feel free to join in ;)



This first edition focuses on vegetables and fruit. Spinach salad with tomatoes, green onion, avocados, and cucumbers is the go-to side in our house. SK is kind of picky about his veggies - hates mushrooms, bell peppers, eggplant, celery (in salads) - all of which I LOVE, so either I have to make a separate side for him because he will literally spend forever picking all of the aforementioned shit out of whatever it is I made, or we eat salad with every dinner, for the rest of time. He'll eat just about any vegetable doused in cheese, which totally defeats the point, so I am always trying to think of ways to switch up the vegetable on our plates. He will, however, eat pretty much any fruit you put in front of him.


Happy Thursday! Just one more day til the weekend...one more day...


all photos via weheartit

Seeing red

I am such an inconsistent blogger. I get going on a roll for a while, posting every day, sometimes even SCHEDULING posts to show up a few days down the line just because I am so on top of things. And then, much like every other hobby, I just kind of let it dwindle for a while.

~ Sorry for being a dwindler ~

I am going to a bachelorette party this weekend in New Orleans, and I would be 100% lying if I said I was excited about it. That's a shitty thing to say, I know, but damnit, I am TIRED. I am tired of wedding stuff. I am tired of bridal showers. I am tired of having my weekends continually consumed with other people's activities. I will be fine in a few months! I just need a break from it all right now.
And yes, I get that this makes me a total bitch.

Here's the thing, though: I think it's really easy for people to get all caught up in the Pretty-Pretty-Princess factor of the wedding. No, scratch that - fuck "think," I KNOW it's easy because I've seen it happen to people I would have never in a million years pegged as Bridezillas.

And before you go getting all assumey and judgey on me because I got married this year, know this: I didn't want to do any of it. Of course I wanted to get married to SK, but all the other stuff? I totally could have done without. What mattered to me was having our friends and family in one place to share our love for a day as we became Mr. and Mrs. SK. I mentioned in a post I wrote right after our engagement that we planned our wedding in 5 days, and I had girlfriends calling me all crazy and amazed that I had planned a WHOLE WEDDING IN 5 DAYS. Um, yeah, I did, but that's because our wedding was simple as shit to plan:

Food? BBQ from a local place.
Music? We'll find a DJ one of our friends knows, so as to support local business.
Minister? SK's dad is a Lutheran minister, so he knows a tooooon of them (if I ever get around to detailing out our wedding and the events leading up to it, I will let you know why SK's dad didn't marry us).
Dress? I'll find one that doesn't cost a fortune, meaning under 100 bones.
SK's outfit? Whatever he felt comfortable in.
Location? Outdoor yard at school my mom works at.
Alcohol? SK's best friend owns liquor stores - covered on the cheap.
DONE.

I had a bridal shower, but I didn't want one. I didn't invite any of my girlfriends except my bridesmaids, and even with them, I told the out of town girls not to come. It was mostly my mom/MIL's friends, which was fiiiine with me. They are all sweet ladies and they gave us really nice gifts and a lot of them I hadn't seen in a while. We did a Stock the Bar party that same evening, which served as kind of an engagement party/couple's shower, since we got engaged and married within such a quick time frame. The Stock the Bar party was a blast, and I am really glad we did that, but again, didn't even invite any out of town friends. My justification for that was, again because of the quick turn-around, I didn't want people to feel like they were coming to Houston every freakin' weekend for something else for the Cheryl/SK wedding. It made perfect sense to me.

Our bachelorette/bachelor parties were on the same weekend and SK vacated the city for a beach house in Galveston with his boys. One of the bff's planned a night on the town in Houston for us girls which was a blast and suuuuper cheap. Maybe it's me, but I just don't think that a good time with your best friends should be defined by the final dollar amount of the night, so when girls just plan event after event and out of town bachelorette parties and THEN you're also expected to attend the wedding? It's just kind of out of control.

Also, on top of gas to get there, a hotel room for the weekend (which we're cramming 5 girls into, thankyouverymuch), brunch one day, dinner one night, a lingerie party for the bride, and drinks/food all weekend, one of the bridesmaids emailed us all on Monday and asked that we "all wear red" on Saturday night. Guess who doesn't own a fucking STITCH of red clothing?

FML

This one time I was sleeping...

(re)Inspired by Writer's Workshop Wednesday

This is a re-post from July 2008. I saw the prompts for Mama Kat's WWW and I immediately thought back to this night. And then I barfed a little.

Enjoy.

Toxic

When we (I) first brought Lady Belladonna home to live with us, I was 100% against her being allowed anywhere in the apartment but the floor. No couches, no chairs, and definitely no beds. I did this, not because I'm mean, but because I had this picture in my head of this grown up, incredibly well-behaved dog that was content to lay at our feet when we sat on the couch, and never tried to jump up on us and never harassed guests when they came over to visit.

I sat on the ground with her, played with her from the floor, didn't put her in my lap when I was on the couch, blah blah blah. We were well on our way to the wonderful, happy, no dog hair on the couch future I had envisioned.

Fast forward 1 week.

I come home from work and there lies SK, in his standard afternoon position, asleep on the couch, TV on, blanket covering him, Bella's little head poking up from under the covers too...

Wait. What?!

HE TOTALLY CAVED ON THE RULES.

Turns out, when I was at work, he was routinely letting her nap with him. On the furniture. Sometimes even on the bed. I thought my head was going to explode.

It was all pretty much downhill from there. Now that we've moved out of the apartment (sniff...I miss you Heights) she has the run of the house. She leaps from couch to couch, tears around on the wood floors, sliding into walls, furniture, our neighbor's small children... AND she sometimes sleeps on the bed with us.

It's a battle I was destined to lose, really. But she's cute and she is always happy to see me, so I mean, who am I to deny her a little more spoonin' time? I was slowly getting used to sharing my side of the bed with a 75lb dog. She sleeps down at my feet, and I am ok with that--just stay away from my face and we're good.

Apparently she was angry at me for something on Monday night because I woke up to what can only be described as the most foul-smelling FUNK I have ever whiffed up these nostrils. SK was out with a friend and I let Bella sleep with me, hugging her a little closer and higher up than usual because I was all alone in the house. Evidently, at some point between 10pm and 2:30am, she flipped her ginormous self around, positioned her booty right near my delicate little olfactory cavities, and LET ONE RIP.

I woke up and immediately panicked, assuming she HAD to have just taken a massive poo on the bed. It smelled THAT BAD. As threw off the covers and stumbled toward the light switch, I was going over what the heck she could have eaten to make her so sick. I actually felt bad for her at that point--poor little thing, got sick and didn't feel well...

WRONG!

I flip the switch and there she is, lying on the bed, looking at me with one eye barely open, all lady, what the eff is wrong with you?? It's 2am--turn off the light! I scan the bed for poop because I refused to believe that she had only farted that stench out, but found none. I turned the fan on high and cracked a window because the smell hadn't dissipated any. I climbed back in bed, flipped her around so her butt was out of my face and unknowingly geared up for Round 2.

That's right, y'all...it happened AGAIN! She scooted back around sometime between 2am and 4am and bombed me a second time.

I was officially pissed upon waking up to a nose full of stink twice in one night, and started to take it personally. Do I not feed you? Do I not play with you? Do I not let you sleep in this massive bed with me, all comfortable and warm? I got up and dragged her to her kennel in the office and shut her inside for the remainder of the night. I walked back into my bedroom and almost passed out from the lingering fumes. I finally fell asleep and had dreams about a war with men in berets throwing vials of toxic gasses at me that were making my face melt off.

Anyone want a free dog?

I won't be IGNORED, Dan.

Anyone else never seen Fatal Attraction? I have heard all about Glen Close (love her!) and her psycho bunny-boiling character, but I had never actually seen the movie. So guess what SK and I watched last night while working out? Um, yeah...is that weird?

I can't work out and ONLY have the exercise DVD going. I need music or a movie or someone working out with me to occasionally talk to. I've tried just watching a tv show, but commercials bore me to tears (or bring on the ACTUAL tears...damn you, SPCA/Sarah McLaughlin) so I don't watch them, but constantly having to pause or fast forward through them is just a pain in the ass while trying to do jumping jacks.

SK and I are going to Cancun in November for a wedding and we are committed to getting into shape and not being the fat married couple on the beach. I never understood why some girls seemed to "let themselves go" after getting married, but you guys, SK and I definitely have spent more time going out to dinner, drinking wine and hanging on the couch than we have working out, and it totally shows. I haaate it. I want to have a body I can be proud of again. We both do.

We've changed our eating habits - ie: we're not ordering every meal - and we're both working out 5 or 6 times a week. I do the 30 Day Shred (which I LOVE) and occasionally run a few miles, and he alternates P90X and the Shred, and rides his bike or runs with his cross country team every morning. I totally believe we'll be in much better shape by November as long as we can stay motivated. We always do so well for a few weeks and then we totally fall off the wagon and have to start all over again.

And really, this isn't just weight that has magically appeared since May. I didn't look the way I wanted to at the wedding, either. And no, this isn't me fishing for compliments, this is me being honest about how lazy I have been the past 4 years. We joke all the time that "the love made us fat," because when we first started dating, we were both pretty thin. Now? Yeah, nahsomuch. But when you have someone telling you you're beautiful all the time or that you look handsome in that shirt, what does the extra 5 (or 15) pounds matter?

No more, says we. We're done with making excuses. We're going to work hard to feel and look better. I know my body has changed and I am fully aware that I will NEVER be 115 lbs (what I weighed when I graduated high school, which was BEFORE I sprouted boobs and hips...late bloomer, this one) again, and I am ok with that. I don't care what the scale says; I want to feel good in my clothes. I want to feel confident on the beach when I shed the cover-up. And yeah, I want my husband to have the hottest wife there ;)

Bring it on, Weight. I'm about to kick your fat ass.

Happy Tuuuuesday!

photo via

The stars at night are big and bright...

Go here to join in!

This week has been busy busy and tonight we head out of town for a weekend in San Antonio. We're going to visit my aunt and uncle who are moving to Virginia (tear) next week. They'll be gone 2 years, and then hopefully *fingers crossed!* will be back (deep in the heart of) Texas for the remainder of their years. The uncle is a Colonel in the Air Force so he has Big Important Things to do at the Pentagon, which means hopefully a DC visit is somewhere not too far in my distant future.

This week, for some reason, I am OBSESSED with chandeliers. I am always in love with them, but this week I have gone a little wackadoo and have been clicking through pictures of chandeliers like WOAH. I love them in unexpected places - outside, especially (I reeeeally wanted them hanging from the oak trees at the wedding, but alas, I am not made of money) - and I'd like to find one to hang above our bathtub in our master bathroom. I would love to have one in our bedroom, but I can't not have a ceiling fan. Maybe the closet?

Are you ready for a shitton of chandelier porn? Srsly, this is about to get ridiculous...


Happy Friday the 13th, y'all.
Hope your weekend is full of fun!

**Also, happy International Left-Handers Day to all you South Paws out there - especially to my most very favorite leftie of them all...



all photos via weheartit, except last one

Tweet Tweet

So, what's Twitter about? I get that I am super late in the game on this one, but recently I feel like all this Twitter-talk has skyrocketed. I mean, one of my friends had Hunter Pence Tweet at her - I don't have even a little bit of an idea as to what the hell that means, but Hunter Pence?! A professional athlete! How the hell do you rub elbows with people like that? I'm certainly not getting that kind of attention over here in my little corner of blogland...maybe it's time to branch out.

But then I think, why am I blogging? Not to gain popularity points on the www - if that were the case I would have shut this tiny little bad boy down years ago. I do it so I have an outlet. So I have a place to be happy about things and to be sad about things and to be pissed about things. I used to want nothing more than to be a writer. I wanted to be a journalist or write for a magazine or write books. My love for a comfortable lifestyle beat that dream down and I caved and became a slave to The Man instead. Blogging affords me the ability to write and "publish" for an audience to read. And judge.

Candidly, I've been afraid of the judgment. Probably because of this, I would have never made it as a writer. I haven't told many of my friends about this place. My family reads occasionally, but I think the frequent use of the F WORD puts them off a bit, which is weird because if you hung out with my family at holidays when the liquor is flowing WOAH - the eff-bomb is dropped like crazy and pretty much everyone is referred to as someone's bitch.

Just about every blog I follow/read daily has a ton of other followers. Almost all of them have posted a story about how they deal with negative responses to posts they've written. Fortunately, I can't relate to those tales of woe, as the most comments I've ever received was 5 on some random post I wrote about something. I think I was experimenting with commenting on SITS, too. They did make me a "Saucy Blogger" once, but I was put off by the abundance of Mom blogs over there. Mommy bloggers are great, don't get me wrong, but I started to wonder if I was the only chick sans kid who was blogging. I've found that I'm not, and have discovered a plethora (would you say you have a plethora of pinatas?) of hilarious bloggers that I go back to every day.

Does Twitter bring more traffic to your blog? To me it seems to be a lot like Facebook status updating, which is annoying as shit, so maybe I won't hang out too long with the Twittering...

I'd be lying though, if I said I wasn't kind of stoked to see what MC Hammer tweets about. I bet that shit gets insaaaane....

Oh hi, there you are...

Go ahead...click it ^

It's Friiiiiday!!

God, Friday - you took your sweet ass time getting here this week.
No hard feelings, though.

This weekend there is the promise of sun, sun and more sun until (ironically) SUNday, so you can bet yer ass I'll be soaking that shizz up. I am 100% unmotivated to take the time to write out what I plan to do this weekend, so instead I'll be 5 and we'll play a quick round of show-and-tell, k? Here we goooo....

Tonight I will go here:


...and drink this:


Then tomorrow, I plan to do this:


...while drinking more of these:

...and then I will sit on my back patio and listen to some tunes and watch the sun do this to my fence:

...while maybe consuming some of this:

(it has been a very long week)


Hope y'all have a happy and relaxing weekend!

xo


all photos via weheartit, as usual