Listen up!

If you aren't a fan of Jim Gaffigan, then you aren't a friend of mine. *nose up*
http://www.jimgaffigan.com/
His new special came out this week on Comedy Central and I continue to love the man more each day.

Unexpected Guests

Do guests stop by your house unannounced or at the last minute (e.g., "Hey, we are near your house and wondered if you are home.")? We live in an area where people often drive past on their way to someplace else, and are right off the highway, so it happens with reasonable frequency. I've become quite adept at the five minute spiff up.

My tootsies

I had an hour long pedicure yesterday. I guess my feet WERE in that bad of shape. I took my niece and hers was done about 20 minutes before mine. The good news is it was a fantastic pedicure, the tvs were good, the chairs were devine (super massaging) and the women were thorough. All for $30/pp.

It was her birthday present from us, and it was my early birthday present from Chris. Yay!

Carnage and Such

I went on my work trip to San Angelo. We were invited to a Rotary Club lunch and had to sing Home on the Range. If it wasn't so ridiculous, I'd have been irritated. We were shown amazing hospitality during our trip. So much that I realized how much I value my independence on trips. We ate at a Mexican restaurant where the owner's son is married to Virginia from Hell's Kitchen Season 2(?). I remember her as the finalist who I never expected to go far, but she was in the finale.

I then stayed at Chris's work partner's house upon return. I am so glad I'm not a single party girl at the age of 36. And while I'm into some good smut talk occassionally, there was far too much nasty lingo flying all night long.

When I went home, I arrived to the boys making breakfast at 11:30 a.m. There were three big bowls of different chicken wing sauces, all sitting there for the last few days, cheese sauce that had been simmering for four days and other misc. food and dirty dishes. The furniture was moved and two patio chairs were moved inside for additional seating. Then there was the malty smelling four-season room. Chris was pouring a pitcher of beer from his new beer fridge tapper when the doorbell rang. He left the nozzle flowing and went to answer the door, got distracted and about two gallons of beer ran all over the carpet. And I don't have to clean any of this. :-)

Parties

It's a festive time of year!

Saturday I had my annual girls night out. We met in the afternoon for shopping, had a room with a heart shaped hot tub (*giggle*) and hit the town. There was a cool bartender show (juggling, flames, etc.) even.

Sunday we did our annual St. Patrick's Day funfest, as that is when the Shamrock Shuffle and Parade were. Me and a few others walked, two of our friends ran. Chris and a friend waited at the bar for us. :-) It was a fun day, as usual.

Wednesday I leave for Texas and men invade my house for the NCAA tournament. There is a gallon of nacho cheese sauce, a gallon of jalepenos, a gallon of Frank's Red Hot, a giant prime rib, a box of 20 brats, about a million chicken wings and more in our house right now. Chris also has his beer tapper up and running. He converted a chest freezer over to a two headed tapper. There sits a 1/4 barrel of Leine's and two five gallons of homebrew. I return on Saturday, but am not going home. I'm staying in Madison with a friend. I'm a little scared to come home on Sunday to the carnage.

On a bright note, Chris and I went shopping for the non-institutional sized party food last night. He suddenly realized how even when you try to stick to a reasonable list and price compare, groceries add up. He said he'd be "complaining a lot less about my grocery bill for parties."

Blind Date

Let's say you got hooked up with someone, hadn't talked yet, just some quick emails to schedule a date for a cocktail.

What would you reveal in the first 15 minutes?
a) How to pronounce your name
b) Your job
c) You spent time in a military prison for going AWOL
d) You are in the middle of a divorce which you just recently filed for
e) You've only had one serious relationship in your life
f) Your biggest lifelong dream

I mean, I haven't dated for awhile, but the answers are not c-f, right? 15 minutes seems a bit too soon.

$1.97

I have a tenuous relationship with JC Penny's. I sometimes find nothing, sometimes many things. And the customer service/cashier peeps suck. But, they have a large selection of items and as I said, I sometimes hit paydirt.

Yesterday I went in to buy underwear. 99% of my underwear purchases come from Target, Walmart, Kohls or Macy's, so it was my first venture into JCP underwear. I like their bra selection, so I figured the undies would be fine. In reality? Not so much for what I was looking for. But that's ok, it wasn't dire. I decided to look at the sales racks. I found my favorite style of work pants in a new color for me (dark gray) at 50% off. Then I glanced through the "75% off or more" rack. I found two shirts that I liked (not loved) and they were in winter/spring transitional fabrics and colors. For $1.97 each, it was enough for me to buy them.

So, if you have a JCP and need some shirts that you'd like (not love), go check out their super duper sales racks.

Now, I need new athletic shoes, but my allowance won't stretch far this month with lots of social engagements. It'll have to wait until April.

Mental Exhaustion

On a bright note, my hair is now a lovely shade of Feria's Bronze Shimmer. Chris's pennance for the gray hair comments? He's in bed for the third day with a horrendous cold.

I took Thursday afternoon and Friday off work to catch up on school work. You'd think I'd still feel like I had a long weekend. Nope. I just sat at a different desk (library and home), doing different things (school work). I did, however, get to lunch with my dad on Friday. It had been a long time since I saw him. We also had a fun dinner at a friend's house on Friday. She had her 15 year class reunion recently, so I looked at the book and LMAO and rolled my eyes at people's updates.

Oh-we watched The Constant Gardner this weekend. Interesting. I'm not really sure how I felt about it.

What's cool?

So it appears Converse Chuck Taylor's struck a deal with AC/DC and Metallica for new shoe designs. I kind of get the AC/DC one, as Angus sometimes wore these shoes. But Metallica? Really? Is this "cool?" Metallica and Chuckies just don't go together in my head.

You know what definitely isn't cool? My gray hairs. Chris discovered them while sitting next to me on the plane for vacation. There are about 8 on the right side of my head by my ear. *cries*

New things

1. A Five Guys just opened in Madison near my office. I would've never known about Five Guys if it weren't for RTVW.

2. I went out to lunch with coworkers today. We very, very rarely venture out for lunch. We went to a new place & it was delish! The decor was a little "old world french" for me, but the food was kind of "gourmet bakery". I had a shitake mushroom soup that wasn't cream based and a hard roll.

3. We closed on our mortgage refinance today, so I suppose that's new again.

4. I visted Chris Cooley's blog. That was new.

5. I need new athletic shoes.

6. I would like the Fleet Foxes cd. They are a new band to me.

I'm being scandalous and ending on six.

I have a partner

You meet the bestest people online. Really.

My awesome 3 Day Partner list is expanding. Boo Boo, who I lost my 3 Day virginity with, might not be able to make the walk in Chicago this year. This makes me very (VERY) sad, but it makes me very happy that another friend stepped up to walk with me. Miss Breezy is doing the 3 Day this year! Three cheers for Breezy!

Now, I'm going to need some strategies to get her to shut up. I mean, I have to listen to this woman ramble on and on for 60 miles. :-) However, I can rest assured she will not steal my string cheese from the pit stops.

I'm still holding out hope Boo will crew the event, but she needs some time to make that decision. I'm holding out hope that Boo will hand me her "little drops of sunshine" at one of the pit stops. If she volunteers for a pit, I think it should be the last one of the day so we have something to look forward to all day. And, she'll get more sleep. :-)

If any of you have the opportunity to do this, or a similar event in your area, please just do it. It's an amazing experience and your fundraising is so important.

I received three Valentines

I feel lvoed!

Valentine #1 is very special because it's from him.
Valentine #2 is very special because they finally admitted their stalking behavior.
Valentine #3 is very special because it's the prettiest valentine evah. All my other lurrrvahs already got their smooches, so pucker up baby, it's your turn! *smoooooch*

Vacation Pics

Puerto Vallarta. We went to the Botanical Gardens considerably south of town and then walked along the Malecon, which is famous for sculptures and sand art.

Apparently there was an entire "Last Supper" scene during the Christmas season.

This was a bus stop. Notice the cows grazing in the background. :-)

This little fella visited while I was sitting in the bathroom at the botanical gardens. Eeek!

The blue spiky plants on the bottom are agave, for you tequila fans.

Mazatlan. It was bigger than I expected! We went over to Stone Island and drank and ate (OMH-the shrimp were AMAZING), away from the crowds. It was a nice, scenic, relaxing way to spend some time. Later we went to the touristy area and did some shopping.

Some of the "palapas," the beach huts that served food and drink.

Mazatlan is home of Pacifico Brewery.

Our ship. It's smiling at you. :-)


Cabo San Lucas. It was pretty, but otherwise basic boring touristy stuff. If you go to Cabo, go because you want to golf, do water sports and fish. There's really not much else there other than the "get wasted" scene. On a better note, the whales were constantly around the ship and harbor, teaching their babies how to breathe. I took some pics, but they were crappy because they never came far out of the water.

*snort* Spicy Tuna. I would name my boat Spicy Tuna.

Can we not talk about how huge my oobies look here? It's a hair embarassing.

We kept missing sunsets because we didn't ever have the camera with. This is as close as we got (in Puerto Vallarta).

Foods you don't like anymore

I was just eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes this morning, and realized I haven't enjoyed my last four bowls (I rarely eat cereal-this was a leftover from when niece and nephew were over during the holidays). I'm tossing them out. I don't think I care for sugary breakfast cereals anymore. I know, this means I'm old.

Other items I've crossed off my "enjoyable" list:
Pop Tarts
Funyons (sp?)
Whole candy bars whose names are not "Hershey's" or "Kit Kat"
Crabcakes (I've had too many bad ones)
Pillsbury canned cinnamon rolls

What do you no longer enjoy?

Stress? What stress?

My how a vacation helps the stress levels. I have no oddities this week in my schedule, so I feel like I can get back into the swing of things rather easily.

Vacation was good. The weather was in the 70s & 80s each day and was sunny. Friday was kind of a weird weather day and the seas were a little choppy, so we spent more time inside. We made friends, saw family, and enjoyed some great entertainment over the week. I can't say that I plan to return to Mexico. Though it was fine, it definitely wasn't my favorite destination we've visited. I much prefer the Caribbean for sun & surf. Pics to come later.

So, what did I miss last week?

Stress monster attack

I knew this week would be stressful. I'm stressed to the point of tears this morning. Nothing is going right. Between too much to do at work and school, over $3000 worth of money work owes me for reimbursements that is REALLY delayed coming in, about $1000 in consulting money that is delayed coming in and vacation being in two more days, I'm super stressed.

F@!*$*g Facebook!

I knew this was a danger when I signed up, but I thought if I didn't ever seek out anyone, nobody would really find me. WRONG! Let's look at my most recent friend request receipts in the last week:
1) J. This is good. An old high school classmate and DQ coworker. Sweet man.
2) Aunt D. Noooo! Relatives weren't supposed to find me! On a funny note, her real name is Madonna and she was a singer from way back. A really, really low budget country singer, but she had an album. :-) She's pretty cool as far as aunt's go, but no relatives!
3) V. This was an old family friend acquaintence. I was best friends with her niece and our extended families were pretty close. Later on, she became a higher-up colleague of mine as a fluke. She's retired now, but it's still too weird to have someone that was second in command at my workplace on there now.
4) K. Oh hell. This was an old middle school/high school friend. Me, D, & K were best friends, though we were all very different. K was the high-maintenance friend. Eventually she became too high maintenance for everyone & we couldn't take it anymore. Kind of an awkward ending to the friendship, but not horrid. Almost a mutual parting of ways. I think she's a good person and was a good friend at one time. However, the mere thought of restarting any friendship with her exhausts me.

Now Blogger is my last anonymous frontier, though I doubt anyone would find me on RTVW, either.

Out with the old

I have multiple bottles of shower gels & soaps to use.

I have multiple, half-used bottles of face cleanser to use.

I have a billion eye shadows to use.

I've been on a "no more new stuff" kick since early 2007. The eye shadows will take me at least another year to start getting scarce. The face cleanser will probably last until mid-February.*see note The shower gels another year.

Note: I have half a bottle of a plain Clearasil cleanser that I don't recall buying. It may just get tossed as it dries my skin too much.

The scoop

No, nothing juicy, just an update.

1. Vacation is less than 3 weeks away.
MIL is coming to stay with cats because, a) she really wants to be useful in her retirement, and b) our usual cat sitter is out of the country during that time. My dad and neighbor could have done the cat sitting, but as I said, MIL wants to be useful. She'll bring her black lab, so the cats will be stressed, but they'll be happier WITH someone there than alone for that long. Now, I'm kind of weirded out by MIL being alone in our house for a week. I'm wondering if there's anything I should hide.

2. We had to buy an $1800 snowblower attachment for our lawn tractor because the snow was just too much for our plow blade. Not money I wanted to spend before the cruise. However, it makes plowing SOOOOO much easier and faster!

3. I'm working out and watching my diet. I've dropped 3 pounds in the last three weeks, which isn't great, but I need to get back in control. I stopped working out during last semester and paid for it with about 6-8 lbs.

4. I'm on two back-to-back business trips later this week. First to the Hershey, PA area, then to Lincoln, NE. Woo. The good news is that it makes time go faster and vacation will be here before I know it!

5. We lit up the new smoker yesterday. It's quite fancy, because that's how I roll. We smoked trout, salmon & ribs. Yum!

6. I'm posting a questionaire about things in your house/apartment on OT today. If you haven't been to OT in awhile, come play.

My cup spilleth over

I broke my cup holder in the car. I know, it seems hard to break a cup holder, but I did. I'm special like that. So here I sit at the dealership, getting it fixed. They have wireless-bonus.

Tonight I'm going over to a friend's house after work. I don't do that enough. She's only about a mile from my workplace and I have a few hours to kill every Tuesday after work. I just usually run errands. So, I'm making an effort to do errands on alternate weeks and visit her a few times/month. Otherwise, we just rarely see eachother.

Do you have any friends you'd like to make more time for?