Wordless Wednesday - Don't Step on the Third Rail.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I may or may not have had too much to drink last night. Now I have that feeling, you know, the one that feels like a bunch of heavy soggy lukewarm bandages are wrapped tightly around your head. That one. Blaaaaargh.

So I'm leaving you with a photo for Wordless Wednesday while I try and go get acclimated to my brain again.

Not the best photo ever, and would likely benefit from some editing, but it's somewhat old... Most underground DC Metro stops look like this one! I was at the Smithsonian stop, waiting for my train.

My lucky day! I'd like to thank the Academy...

I won me some awards! Two on the same day, nonetheless!!


Lady Hill has awarded me the Versatile Blogger award! I'm delighted and all a-flutter. Thank you to the most awesome zombie-hunting Lady around!! :) For this award I have to list 10 things about myself, and then pass the award on to 15 bloggers. (I may just do 3, because that's how I roll.)

Giving this one to the following lovely ladies:

Gnetch @ Thank Goodness for the Good Ones
Shelly Ann @ Painting The Memories
Tazim @ Being Tazim

My second award...

From JessRaquel comes the Sugar Doll award! Another fantastic lady that deserves a big THANK YOU, because she is just that awesome. :) This award also has you list 10 things about yourself, and pass it on to 10 (Three? Heh heh.) bloggers.

And this one's gonna go to ...

Krysten @ After I Do
Lindsay @ PancakesNPajamas
Becky @ So Very Blessed...

So, here are my ten things:

1. My very first crush was on Richard Dean Anderson, aka MacGuyver. I was five. Augh. Mullet.
2. I would *much* rather spend a quiet evening in watching movies and having drinks than going out to a bar/club and staying up late. Yep. Getting old!
3. Scrabble is my favorite board game ever!!
4. One of my big pet peeves is impatient people that stand right-behind-you in a checkout line at a store. That's not making you go any faster, dingbat!
5. I dislike Lady Gaga. Her songs are somewhat catchy but she's trying way too hard as a 'person' to be a unique snowflake.
6. My bed is my no-worry zone. Regardless of whatever's been worrying me during the day or stressing me out, I leave it at the door and relax in my safe-haven bed. :)
7. I haven't been to the dentist in a year and a half. Ack!! I know. Not only am I a dentophobe, but I'm also unemployed.
8. There is a stuffed walrus on our refrigerator.
9. I own the SeaQuest season 1 boxset. Yeah, I know ... awesome!!
10. I love being outside during thunderstorms. They are amazing!


Phew. Totally done with babbling about myself! It always takes me for-ev-er to think up those little random factoids. ;)

A morning beach event, complete with alien crabs and Jesus.

First off I want to thank everyone that commented on my last Saturday Centus post - I wasn't going to reply to every comment, but any type of criticism is more than welcome and I really enjoy writing! Honestly I really prefer writing darker, more eerie/supernatural stuff and I used to write a lot back in the day so mostly it just comes naturally. It almost makes me want to write a short story but then I'd have to have a solid plot and not just 100 words. ;)

At any rate, moving on...

I was going to do a vlog today! But this morning was my beloved Netherlands facing Slovakia, so I had to cheer my Oranje boys on. (We won! Quarterfinals baby!~) After that and lunch I sat down with my new book, fully intending to read one or two chapters, but I got *so* wrapped up in it that I accidentally read four or five before I realized that the afternoon was upon us. We had The Bug Man coming today to do his bi-yearly spraying (Something this ex-Northerner has never had to deal with.) and I highly doubt he'd want to see me wailing on the vuvuzela.

So there went that idea.

And then I was going to write a post about the US Men's National Team losing to Ghana and how awesome we did. But I KNOW it would just turn into a post about me being absolutely googoo over Landon Donovan ( Hummana, hummana, hummana (those hummanas are picture links btw) - most people are so not into the fivehead he's got going on but may I just say, meeeeeow! btw email me bb. ♡ ) so I erred on the side of caution there.

So I decided to write about our Sunday morning excursion.

If you follow me on Twitter (and if you don't -- why not? ;) you may have seen me post this pic early Sunday morning. Matt and I got up at 6:30 to get our junk together and head out for ... get ready for this awesomeness ... breakfast on the beach. We stopped at a local deli on the way and got the most amazing bagels ever, got to our little parking area at 7 am, and trundled out onto the empty beach to set up our chairs, eat our bagels, and enjoy the sunrise over the water. AAH! Freakin' amazing. This is fast becoming a Sunday morning ritual. I fed that nosy seagull up there a few pieces of my bagels while the waves crashed.

We stayed for two hours, and I discovered two amazing things on this trip.

1. CRABS. I don't know much about them, and I'd never seen a live one until this day. Sitting around in our chairs, for some reason I looked behind us... and saw a crab as long as my hand pop out of the sand. EEHHH?! Eyes wide, I couldn't take my eyes off it as it scurried around, hiding in the little sand gullies (from roving seagulls I imagine) before scuttling around some more. And then... I saw another... and another... at one point, at least 8 crabs behind us, scuttling and hiding, bobbing and weaving.

It was almost like being in a crab-related horror movie ... one girl's trip to the beach at sunrise ends fatefully ... she didn't know about the sand crabs ... waiting just beneath the surface to pop out in hordes, scuttling, clacking, pinching!.... THE CRABS, coming summer 2010. (Starring me and Landon. Wait, I, uhh.... ahem.)

I came home and learned that they were ghost crabs from this Wikipedia article. I always wondered why I would find fist-sized holes in the sand sometimes, going down at a 45 degree angle. Answer? Space alien crabs.


2. Apparently one of the churches on the beach holds a Sunday morning sermon at 8 am. Where? About 50 feet behind our chairs. Complete with a speaker system, acoustic guitaring, and about 40 church-goers with beach chairs dressed in their Sunday finest. We got to listen to the dulcet sounds of Amazing Grace while the entire congregation watched my wide load lumbering around in the sea like Jonah's beached whale. I think next time, we'll park one public access down the way...



Can't wait for next Sunday morning! But now, I'm going to write fan mail to a certain midfielder...

Saturday Centus #5

I'm doing Jenny's awesome Saturday Centus again! Yippee!! Briefly, she supplies a writing prompt, to which you have 100 words to weave your story with. Awesome fun. Here is my submission for this week, with the supplied prompt in blue...


* * * * *

Uncomfortable and in a hurry, I jostled through the others as I made way for the door, hearing more murmured concern.

"Did you notice Elizabeth in class this morning and how forlorn she seemed?" Perhaps I will write her a comforting note, I thought.

Likely that wouldn't help. I'd seen her glassy gaze, empty expression, half-parted lips in an eternal sigh. I'd seen the barely there matching bruises.

I knew.

In the night the swamp air was steamy, and clung to my clammy skin. I followed the wrought iron fence through the gardens to the cobblestone street, breathing heavily; nervous? I knew I wasn't alone.

I felt those predatory, unliving eyes on my back as I hurried home.

* * * * * *

Long before Tru Twilight was even a thought, there were vampire novels - Anne Rice was my absolute favorite author while I was in high school; her vampire chronicles engaged me in a way no other books ever had. And now I want to re-read them. :)

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend; mine will be filled with edge of your seat soccer games, a beach morning tomorrow, and lots of tasty food. Enjoy y'all!!

Shiny, shiny pictures!

Yup, it's back. I'm back in the saddle again. (Not unlike that awful screechy Aerosmith song.) After a two week absence I'm ready to go, and I'm beyond thrilled with my results for this week.

Oh, if you haven't the foggiest what I'm babbling about, a trip here may make things a bit easier on the ol' brain.

Anyways, I'd had a pretty solid idea in my head for photo three for quite some time ... you see, there's this soccer thing going on ... what, you didn't know? Well I'll be! But there is a soccer thing going on. It's pretty big time. And I wanted to base my photo around that.

I'm rooting for a place called the Netherlands. Where's that? Uhh... you know, Holland. Huh? You know, up above Germany? Amsterdam? Ahh, now you know, that city. Holland. But that's not why I'm rooting for them, they have some superb players on their national team and... blah blah you really don't care about that part, huh...

Less talky, more Oranje!





I really really really enjoy this photo more than words can tell. (You know you want to see it bigger, don't you? I think you do. As always, BTW, you can click the photo to go to its Flickr page, read more comments by me, and comment on it there if you have a Flickr.) This actually wasn't what I had in mind at all for my finished product, and I took it more as a 'goof off' photo than anything serious at all. But when I uploaded them I saw this one and was like .... yeaaaah... that's totally the one.

I learned a lot about photo editing with this one; I did most of it myself with the exception of one Photoshop action, and I'm extremely pleased with the end result. I kind of look like I may eat your face off but I won't, promise.

... Oh! I'm wearing my Netherlands orange kit jersey! KNVB stands for ... *deep breath* ... Koninklijke Nederlandse Voetbalbond, which if not in Dutch would mean the Netherlands Royal Football Club, or something of that ilk. The lion that's sticking his tongue out and not smoking a corncob pipe is their mascot. Holland is obv Netherlands. I'm wearing eyeblacks of the Dutch flag; they feel a lot like those Biore pore strips. And the soccer ball I have is a miniature replica of the Jabulani, which is the ball the World Cup uses in all of their matches.

I'm sure that's more than you wanted to know about the Dutch national team. But hey, trivia...

My hair also had a metric crapton of product in it to get the pigtails right because the heat index here is still hanging around the 500's, which generally means the frizz of doom. Now my hair is crunchy, but it was all for the greater good!

Also, did you know I have a real live orange vuvuzela? That didn't make it into this photo? But may make an appearance in my vlog next week that I've decided to do? Did I just spoil my surprise??... :)

And one outtake from this week also:



I learned a lot about skin editing here. A -lot-. I also learned that my camera is not kind and picks up every pore, freckle, and bit of sunburn I've got. (I also learned a lot about cloning out all the stray eyebrows I had, because yeah, the camera saw those too. Eek.) I even left a few freckles so I wouldn't look like a department store mannequin! Huzzah!



I also want to say that my awesome and super-creative blogfriend Tazim is starting a new photo meme as well...

I am unreasonably excited about this because I love things, and if you love things and taking photos of them I really encourage you to join because it will be full of love and things and amazing happiness! Okay, the end. But really, I am looking forward to this project a lot. :)

Happy weekend y'all! Stay cool and out of the way of the Dutch, because we're going all. The. Way!

My movie experience.

Happy Thursday! I awoke this morning to not one, but two moving trucks bumbling up and down our cul-de-sac. It's totally moving in day, and two of our new neighbors are making it so. The construction is mostly done around us, and I do want to tell you allll about our new (and not so new) neighbors around us, but I think I need to watch them discreetly out of my picture window first to get a better feel of them.

Today, I'm going to talk about the movies. Matt and I rarely go to the movies because right now it's about as expensive as going on a mini shopping spree (okay, maybe at Old Navy or TJ Maxx, but you get the drift), and then you have the other movie-goers that don't seem to mind spending 10 bones on a non-matinee ticket to be a dink during the show.

ANYWAYS, the USA had an amazing soccer win yesterday, so we decided to get a little dinner and go see this:

Knight and Day opened yesterday, and the commercials totally drew us in. Cameron Diaz can do no wrong and is absolutely adorable, and while Tom Cruise may be nuttier than a sack of cashews, he's still a phenomenal actor and yes, I will always find him seriously attractive. It's an action/comedy movie and was a LOT of fun.

What wasn't so fun was the trio of lobotomy patients that sat two seats to my left. Okay, maybe that was too harsh. Trio of forest dwellers raised by local buzzards. ... Okay, anyway. Seemed like a dad and his two teenage children. One of them (the younger boy) escaped my during-the-film stinkeye. The other two, however...

The girl sitting two seats to my left was likely no older than 18 and needed the jaws of life to disconnect herself from her cell phone. To her favor it was on silence, but there was a 45 minute span in which she received (and sent) text messages every two minutes. How do I know this? Because her phone lit up EVERY. TWO. MINUTES. As soon as it had shut off and I became engrossed in the movie again, I would see it light up like a lighthouse in a storm out of the corner of my eye, and here we go again.

If you can't stop texting Johnny Sexyface or Sally EveryGossip for two hours to enjoy an overpriced yet worthwhile film, then God help you. And hopefully he will, when I launch myself across the rows of seats to beat you repeatedly over the head with your phone so it will never, ever light up again.

The second offender was the father figure. Who found it necessary to have his car keys in his hand during the second half of the movie for some reason. And to jingle them softly at random intervals throughout the movie. Just soft enough to annoy the frak out of me. WHY do you have your keys in your hand during a movie? Are you trying to call Ol' Fido over? Are you planning a quick escape out the emergency exit?? No. NO. You do not do that. It's okay if you have a latent twitch for whatever reason, but do not hold noisy things in the movie theater. It will make people like me launch across the seats and ... yeah, you get it.

But honestly, compared to some movie experiences with bratty teenagers and kids under the age of double digits who don't seem to know how to keep their mouths closed for over 5 minutes at a time, it really wasn't that bad. We have more movie outings planned for this summer (because uhm, hello, Inception looks AMAZING!) so we can only hope that we're seated with other folks who are respectful enough to want to enjoy the movie.



That's all for today; back to watching my neighbors try to shove a sofa into their house through the garage door in heat indexed 105 degree heat. It's been a hot one all week here, y'all. My plans for relaxing and wandering through our botanical gardens to photograph trees and flowers and the butterfly house have been dashed this week, but you know? There's always soccer.

I have a lot of ideas.

Lately my brain has been bursting with ideas. THINGS! Things to do that sound exciting! But really? Are they really exciting?

I want to do a vlog for Monday Mingle. I have a love/hate relationship with vlogs because while once in a while they are cool, all the time I start to wonder whether I'm reading a blog or watching TV. No wait, I'm not, the World Cup is on that TV. (More on that later.) Should I do a vlog?? I have the capability, I think. But they're so weird. I'm torn, truly.

I want to redo my blog design. ON MY OWN. This may be the nuttiest thing in the world. I know diddly crap about CSS, but I know enough about blog design and basic HTML that I will likely be able to muddle myself through. I used to make awesome websites back in the day, and I'll be darned if I'm about to shell out 30 buckeroos for something I can gnaw on myself and eventually (possibly) do the right way. My own design is starting to overstay its welcome; those tiles are reminding me more and more of a chlorine city swimming pool eeeeevery day.

I want to go to a Buddhist retreat because I'm reading a book about one right now, and it sounds the bomb! But the closest one to this non-Buddhist beach town is about 8 hours away in the mountains, and it is a largely silent retreat. No talky. No makey friendy. No cellphoney also. Also expensivey. I think the no talky part is a great idea; just leave me be to my whirling dervish of non-thought and let me mosey through the gardens ....................................

Okay, non-thought over.

The World Cup is on RIGHT NOW and it's USA v. Algeria. For you non footie folk I'll just say the US -has- to win this game to advance further, and they've been presented with quite a number of opportunities to make a goal, but failed each time.

Matt is HEAVILY invested into this game. This situation can end in one of two ways.

1. Win

The skies erupt with sunshine and candy falls to the Earth! Giant macaroni and cheese platters for lunch, new wardrobes and shopping trips for everyone, and a basket of corgi puppies *somehow* finds its way to my doorstep, because the planets align and All Is Good.

2. Lose


The End. The ocean rises and consumes our house (and car for good measure). The cats contract Continuous Meowing Disease and never shut up, blowing out our eardrums. All we have to eat for the rest of our lives are those horrid Uncrustables, drinking Bud Light out of the miserable Vortex bottle; always enough beer to taste crappy, but NEVER enough to get you drunk, in this sad Sisyphean life.



Seriously, folks, it's life or death over here. And it is VERY tense. If I raise the white flag please send Pop Tarts or small cans of fruit to keep me going.

A new week!

I'm back! Aah. :) I had a nice little blog-cation. You may or may not have noticed (bahaha), but I tend to get burnt out on projects and things really, really easily. I have great ideas that make me excited and pumped up, and I'll dive into them headfirst and 110%, and then, two weeks later...

.... Booooring! Next!

Yep, I have hobby ADD. I'll admit it. And while it's not that strong with blogging, I still feel I need to take hiatuses (hiatii?) more often than most of you power-bloggers. I just get bored and feel like I have nothing new to contribute and I get twitchy and stuff. TWITCH! Need... space... ahem. Okay!

Anyways, we had a fantastic long weekend with our friends and family coming over to watch lots and lots of World Cup! It went from Wednesday to Sunday, and most times we had seven people here watching continuous soccer, and I'll admit by Saturday I got a little World Cupped out. I escaped to the library -- aaahhhhh -- and hung out there for a bit, perusing some books and reveling and the sound of silence and not-vuvuzelas (I won't hate, I have a vuvuzela app for my iTouch, and Matt's parents had an ACTUAL VUVUZELA sent to us and it is amazing) and not having to listen to the following exclamations from at least three people every time someone got close to a goal -

"ooh... OOH... EEEEE... AAGGHHH.... WHY DID YOU DO THAT.... AAUUGGHHH.... maybe an obscenity in here..."

But we had a fantastic time, and the only photos I got were of my decorations because once people got here I sort of forgot I had a camera, and my waistline surely gained like a million inches because we ate so many delightful lunches and dinners, but it's okay, we're doing daily cardio now. :)



I'm feeling kind of refreshed now too; before our long weekend I was getting ho-hum and feeling a little bored and monotonous -- unemployment will do that to you! -- but now I feel I've got a better outlook and am ready to go again! I'm going on a garden walk sometime this week (maybe even this afternoon) with my camera, I've signed up for an early morning bird walk next month, and I've been reading a lot of Buddhism books and novels that really make me happy and are getting me back to my roots.

Isn't this full moon flower vase amazing? ♡

Okay, I need to be paying more attention to the TV now because my World Cup-obsessed boyfriend had to tear himself away from the TV to get a haircut and I'm charged with texting him any goals or cards gotten by anyone and I just nearly missed the French goal and my head very well may be on the line .... !! ;)

A little break.

I really haven't had much of worth to say lately, and I'm scrambling to get ready for the small horde of folks that will be visiting us on Wednesday & Thursday for a long weekend, so I've decided I'm going to take a small blogging hiatus.



These little flags are tiny replicas of the teams playing in the World Cup... well, a small portion of them, anyway. I finished all 32 of them (FINALLY) so we can stick them in our three and a half dozen cupcakes we've special ordered for the occasion! We will have such tantalizing flavors as:

Pink Lemonade!
Orange Creamsicle!
Key Lime!
Cabana Coconut!
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup!
And of course ... Bacon!

I've got towels to wash and bathrooms to scrub, and more handmade decorations to hang, oh... and soccer games to watch! I may do a little post as the week goes on but I think it's time for a smidge of a break. It comes at a good time I think, as I'm feeling a little burnt out for blogging 'material', I guess.

So have a great week!! I'll see ya in a bit. :) I'll come back with tons of pictures!

Feelin' hot hot hot!

I have three major developments to tell you guys! I know, you're holding your breath in anticipation...

Thing the first!

The ringing in my ear is slowly but surely going away! Hurrah! It's still there a little but I really don't even notice it anymore. Take that, evil sinus system from my dad's side of the family!

Thing the second!

This thing is depressing. I returned a library book late and have ... A FINE. *dun dun duuuuunnn* I've never, ever, once in my life returned a library book late. I checked out three and thought they were all due on the 22nd. NO. One was due this past Wednesday.

My fine? Sixty cents. AUGH the humanity! I am embarrassed. I think I may wear a disguise when I go to pay my fine. A fake moustache.

Thing the third.

It's flippin' HOT here! We had on-off thunderstorms this morning, so today it's been in the mid 90's and humid as all get out. Feels like you're walking through a sponge! The heat I can take, but the humidity really does a number on me. Sometimes I even feel a little nauseous... blar! I'd really rather be blogging from the back porch, but I'm holed up inside with the air conditioning.

Staying inside also gave me a chance to start cleaning for our party this long weekend! Matt cleaned the granite countertops and our flat stovetop, and I took on the daunting task of scrubbing our hardwood floors clean. Not something I see myself doing often. Kind of a pain in the patoot. But it is sooooo sweet to see a nice, smooth floor with no little kitty pawprints on it!

Except the few over there that Finn left. ARGH!! Did you know cats sweat through their pawpads? (And their noses as well!) That's why you never see a sweaty cat! And that's why they leave prints on your clean floors.

And finally, I am really bad at posting awards... (I'm as forgetful as a ... huh? Who are you again??) but JessRaquel over at Mo Shiorghra was awesome enough to give me this one!!


I love sunshine! And sunflowers!! And all my bloggy friends. :) Thank you all for lighting up my Google Reader with your fabulousness!



Have you all been watching World Cup? .... Have you?? Aren't you happy that England didn't spank our bottoms 195-0? (We managed to tie England 1-1.) What's your favorite match been so far? Are you finding yourself attracted to the entire youthful German team?? (cough) Is the Netherlands (my team!) gonna kick butt tomorrow? Why is my Fantasy League team doing so poorly?????...

... Sorry. ;)

Cleanup on aisle five.

I'm not one to complain - especially on this blog! I can't stand consistently whiny posts, because really? Life is awesome. But once in a while...

It really turns into a comedy of errors.

Two weeks ago I got sick, my sinuses were clogged, I couldn't lay down or sleep without my noseholes instantly clogging up with goo. There's nothing worse than not being able to breathe through my nose at night, at least for me! Because I'll inadvertently wake up in a pile of my own drool. Gaaaaaaaak. Barf. Anywho, I took some medicine, and I got better! (Huzzah!)

Then, last weekend, my sinuses got extremely dry. I woke up to minor nosebleeds a few days in a row, my eyes were itchy and dry and I felt like one of those allergy-prone dogs who was constantly rubbing their faces on the ground. No worries, I crammed some Vaseline up my nose and got some moisturizing eye drops. And I got better! (Huzzah!)

Wednesday I awoke to the loudest ringing in my left ear I'd ever had! WOWZA! That combined with a little sinus pressure made for a kinda crappy day, but by the end of the day it had subsided to a dull roar and I felt better.

But it's still here.

Ringing. (Lowly, at least.)

Do you know what people like me do when something is wrong with us? Yup, we hit the internet. Then, after reading all the viable information we can, we start creating our wills and bucket lists because surely we are in mortal peril! I'm a bit of a hypochondriac, or at least I used to be a lot worse.

And while I read that this ringing (otherwise called its medical fancy name of 'tinnitus') surely isn't life threatening in the least, I read that some people? Have been suffering with this for more than TEN YEARS. Are you SERIOUS?! No, really, after a year give me the gun and my will's on the table. Because while it's really not bothering me (minus a very vague amount of sinus pressure now and again) it can really get ANNOYING. If I had to live with this for more than a month you'd see me running down the street, shrieking like a banshee and waving my arms, foaming at the mouth and wearing a plastic tablecloth from the dollar store.

I scoured the internet for home remedies. Thus far I've tried the following:

Rinsing my ear with saline solution.
Applying drops of olive oil to my ear.
Making an olive oil earplug.
And some kind of wackadoodle treatment consisting of laying my hands flat on my head and whack-whack-whacking the back of my skull with my index fingers. (I think the guy who created this is a crock, and I think he wrote all the 'amazing' testimonials on his website as well.)

Don't worry, I'm not crazy enough to put a bunch of strange materials in my ear, outside of what I can find in the kitchen. Some people have used a neti pot and had results with it, but the mere thought of pouring saltwater up one nosehole and having it come out the other nosehole is enough to make me reach for that plastic tablecloth. (BLAR.) Go to the doctor? HAH! Unemployed and without insurance, I'll be likely planning for my next bankruptcy. I'll wait until aliens crawl out of my ear, thanks.

I'm somewhat thankful for the constant World Cup on the TV, because the horns in the crowd that sound like angry bees drown out my earnoise. It really only bothers me when I'm idle or it's quiet; otherwise if I busy myself or hang out in a mildly noisy area it isn't noticeable.

But it's there.

And my eyes are not only dry but goopy-watery in the morning. Cool.

And I have reflux because my IBS has been acting up (oh yeah, I have IBS) and I've felt like the Hindenburg for the most of the week. (Pre-kaboom, mind you.)

And due to a silly little seemingly innocent joke on my part, I can no longer watch a team stand for its World Cup anthem without thinking of this:




And so I've been stopping randomly during the day, to belt out, "I like to push the pram-a-loooooottttt...."

It makes me feel a little bit better! But still, where's my tablecloth. I'm going to wrap myself like a burrito in it until I get well again! Auuugghhh....

An ode to yumminess.

I want to tell you a story. About one of the most amazing foods ever. I used to hate this food with a passion, but recently my eyes have been opened and the light has shined on me, and I can now proclaim!

YES!

POTATO SALAD!!

It's true, I used to hate this. My mom would make it all the time in the summer, but me? EW. No thank you. Barf-o-rama, I'd rather eat dog poo, et.al.

At work, people would bring it to potluck luncheons. UGH. That looks disgusting! How dare you try to feed me that!!

... Isn't it awful, that all my assumptions were on looks alone. I had never ever tried potato salad!!!


Poor, potato salad. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I ever doubted your amazing tastiness. I was rude and closed minded to judge you.

I did discover how amazing you were, though. We had lunch at a little local place here a year or so ago, and potato salad was a choice for a side item with my lunch. Why I randomly chose it, I'll never know, but from that first bite forward I knew that I would never wrinkle my nose at you again. The large, succulent potato pieces mixed in with the flavorful mayo and egg, and just enough celery to give a crunch once in a while? Perfection! There is no better food that makes me think 'summertime'. (With the exception of grilled burgers & corn on the cob!) Fireworks erupted over my head, a choir of angels sang, and damn the caloric content, so I will only have one small scoop at a time, I promise.


We are going to lunch pretty soon at the place with the Best Potato Salad in the World, and I was SO excited that I had to write this post. That's how awesome it is! what food would you devote an entire blog post to?? Cheese would be a close second for me... mmm... cheese...

Have a great food-filled weekend y'all!!

My task today ... sigh.

So today I was going to take my picture for my 52. I've got a FANTASTIC idea that makes me go, bwahahaha! What is it? I'll give you a hint ...

Crepe paper!

BWAHAHA!

What do you think it could be? Tell me! I'd love to hear your guesses. :)

But I can't do that today. Today, I've put my foot down. I NEED to clean out my dresser and my closet. Go through it, dig out the things I'm never going to wear again, and put them in a Goodwill box!

You know, the t-shirts or tank tops that are shoved to the very back of your drawers, the 'I may want to wear this someday, when the Tuesdays align and I lose 5 inches off my waist.' Uh-huh. Yeah.... The shirts I wore in college that looked so great, but now? .... We won't talk about that. The winter sweaters that fit once but now when you put them on, you somewhat begin to resemble a sausage in a brightly colored casing, your arms sticking straight out like Randy from a Christmas Story.

I had a few spare bucks scraped together yesterday so I went out to do a little shopping and bought a great new fun summer dress! I brought it home and ... uhh, no place to hang it! My hangers were being hoarded by shrunken winter sweaters. Sigh. That's how I knew...

A little belated spring wardrobe cleaning, I guess.

Hope your day is more fun!! :)

I made a post, but it went ... somewhere else.

So I spent my morning at the beach, and I actually wrote a blog post while I was there! And then I came home, and it wasn't posted! What the heck?? I really did write a post on my phone, I wasn't faking. I guess the internet had other plans for it.

I wonder where it went .............

ANYWAYS! I've gone three days without posting, ack! We had a fantastic weekend, full of sun and barbeques and new friends, and yesterday was filled with more more more job searching -- that position I interviewed for? Turns out an internal applicant applied for the job Friday afternoon, so she automatically got it, and all of us interviewees got the shaft. Now, I can certainly understand promoting from within, and even applaud it, but you really should stop letting people apply BEFORE you interview external applicants!

Anyways, I felt this morning I needed a relaxer, so I woke up early and jetted off to the beach. I've found this lovely little spot that isn't nearly as populated as other, easier accessible parts of the shore, so I set up camp there for the morning armed with my book and my chair and my shades and my 100 calorie Lorna Doone snack. It was fantastic! Just what I needed. There was a pair of little girls playing in the tide pools and rolling around like the cutest little beached whales ever, so that was fun to watch. And a seagull decided to take a nap near my chair! Am I that dull?? ;)

Here's a picture of my chair:

http://twitpic.com/1v15lp

Yeah, I totally have a Finding Nemo towel. I'm not sure who the pink octopus is but he's sure cool!

My beach chair is pink too! I'm not going to tell you how much it cost. It's a great chair, though. The blue ones were on sale but I wanted the PINK one so I paid for the pink one. This was back when I had a full-time job and could fritter away funds on the coolest beach chair ever, by the way. Now I'd have to bring a milk crate with me or something!

But anyways, I really did write a post this morning. It was about the beach and things I saw at the beach, and how evil tidings seemed to be striking a lot of my friends in the blog-o-sphere lately, and that if I could wiggle my nose and go POOF! you would all be at the beach with me with your own oversized Disney towels, top-price chairs, and cool library book of your choice.

I wonder where that post went! Maybe to the bottom of the ocean?


Ooh, dubloons! Yarrrrr.

World Cup starts Friday. There's a concert from South Africa on Thursday at 2pm EST on ESPN that I'm looking forward to!! I've made my World Cup fantasy league and barring no more injuries from anyone, it should be awesome. Matt and I have a friendly wager of a dinner at the restaurant of our choosing for the winner... cross your fingers for me! My team's gonna go All! The! WAY!!!!

.... :) (I want that dinner.)

Is this week over yet?... It is?? WAHOO!!

Man oh man, what a week it's been over here. Between court hearings and ferrying documents around from bank to lawyer and back again, and job interviews and sinister monsoons trying to attack our house... it's been eventful, folks.

Apparently our home warranty didn't cover our garage electric being busted because it was a lightning storm (hmm), so Matt rolled up his sleeves and ... fixed it himself! Something about a plug with a fuse in it and some wires and shazam! Good as new. (Can you tell I'm sooo not mechanically inclined?)

And my job interview went well today! I'm not going to say it went GRRRREAT! because I said that about the last one and I got the lovely 'thanks but no thanks' email. So we'll see if I get called back next week!



Here's my photo for my 52 this week... I need to start planning ahead for these more, but I blame the hecticness of the week, and the bad weather! Boo, hiss, weather!!

You can click on it to go to the actual photo page. I snapped this real quick after my interview today; the lighting was crappy because a storm had suddenly decided to roll in -- oh boy! -- so there's a little more noise in the photo than I would like. I wanted it to have a little bit of a faded vintage-y look so I did what I could! Voila. (PS - if you ever see those shoes somewhere, even if they're only $15, don't buy them. They hurt and are really just for looks.)

And a fun outtake of my photo shoot... did you know I have the most giant white cat in the WORLD?! Because if you didn't...

AAARGH, HE'LL EAT US ALL!! I took a bunch of photos of me squeezing my marshmallow-like cat, and once I uploaded them, I realized in every single one of them ... his butthole was showing. No, really! So I used the rubber stamp tool to clone it out and replace it with fur! HAH! Take that, unsightly cat butts! You are no match for the cloning tool.

But anyways, I've started a list of ideas that I'll use for future shoots. They include ketchup and old champagne bottles and my feet, but not all at the same time.



I hope everyone has a FANTASTIC weekend!! I've gotten a little behind on blogging, so I'm going to play catch-up and respond to some comments. We have a community BBQ on Sunday that I'm looking forward to a lot, tasty food and meeting our neighbors... I wonder if they'll have pulled pork?? A gal can dream! ;)

I am the bomb. Also, that bomb dropped on our house.

(This is a two-part entry. Part one is crazy good. Part two is just crazy.)

So yesterday at 9:30 a.m. I sat my butt in our federal courthouse for my 341 hearing -- pretty much the meeting of myself, my attorney, the trustee, and any creditors that cared to show and speak regarding my bankruptcy. (Tip - creditors never show unless you've likely done something really bad, like fraud or embezzlement or evil.) There were about 15-20 other folks there as well, so I wasn't the only one, but dang was I nervous. This is where I would find out how my bankruptcy would proceed, and how my assets, if any, would be distributed.

I waited. And waited. And ... yeah, waited some more. I got to talking to this old man sitting next to me (And eventually, the guy behind us -- everyone wanted to blab at me! Did I have good hair or something??) and we talked about why we each were in this situation, laughed about it, talked about our pets, and he told me about his 50th high school reunion he just attended. He joked that he couldn't remember half the people that remembered him, and had to keep asking ... "Who the heck are you??" ... and the people HE remembered had to keep asking him ... "Who the heck are you??" We got a good laugh out of it. In retrospect I'm glad we talked; it surely took the edge off of both of us.

And then, at about 11:30, I was called up to swear my life away on the Bible and throw my battered financials on the mercy of the court. At this point I was more hungry than anything; I'd forgotten to bring my muffin from home, and have you tried to find a vending machine in a court building? Good luck to you if you do.

At any rate, I answered all of their questions, and my case was deemed a no-asset distribution. Which means I have no assets to distribute (hur hur), but more importantly, I get to keep what meager worldly possessions I have. And, that my petition passed.

And, that I DID IT. I totally, totally did it. I'm totally done. In 30-60 days I'll receive my discharge notice in the mail, I'll be totally bankrupt, and free free free to start anew.

I really can't describe the feeling of freedom this gives me. A HUGE weight lifted off my shoulders. For the past three or so years I've really been living under stress and fear - it may sound cliche, but I was afraid of everything... afraid of what notice I'd get in the mail that day, afraid of who would call me, afraid that someone would come to the door and give me papers. Being afraid to check the mail just isn't right. Everything felt so out of control, and I felt like I was just being dragged along for this horrible ride. And I remember when I finally realized that I could possibly, just possibly, file for bankruptcy, and I could take control of everything that was happening to me... I just started bawling, in my car, in the middle of rush-hour traffic because I was so happy and filled with hope! It was such a liberating moment, as was this entire process. I really started to feel happy again, like I was getting a second chance at my life without all the stress and the fear and the worry that stemmed from some poorly made decisions.

I'll never forget me leaving the courthouse yesterday; walking down the hall towards the exit with the biggest smile on my face and a bunch of excited exclamation points bumping around in my brain. It's one of those moments that I'll remember, hopefully forever, but who knows with my memory...

And do you want to know the first thing I did when I left? (I know you do!) I walked right down the riverwalk to the chocolate shop and bought myself some malted milk balls! HECK YES! (I bought Matt a peanut butter cup too, because we were there this past weekend, and he was looking at the peanut butter cups longingly, and he was about to buy one but my stomach suddenly got extremely uproarious, and it was most certainly not because I devoured half of a humongous brownie sundae after dinner, okay maybe it was, but anyway we had to make a hasty exit and I felt bad, but that's a whole other story.)

Oh and I got a call for a job interview while I was sitting around waiting to declare my what-have-yous, so I have an interview tomorrow at 11 am! Double awesome!!

* * * * * * * *

So I'm driving home yesterday and this massive thunderstorm opens up, like torrential rains and hey I can't really see the car in front of me and wow that lightning was right in my face. I make it home -- praising the new tires I had put on a month ago -- and I'm making lunch when... CRACKA BOOM, out goes our TV and internet amidst the monsoon outside. Little did we know it also blew out our electric garage door opener, and ALL the electricity in the garage... but we found out when we tried to leave for dinner... TRAPPED, in our own garage!

Will that stop us from getting dinner at dollar taco night?! (A lot tastier and higher quality than it sounds, BTW.) HECK NO. We busted our way out anyways with the help of our P90X muscles and the garage door book that told us how to open it manually. Strangely enough it seems the whole blocks garage doors weren't working, and we got a chance to meet one of our neighbors who has a personality very much akin to a bag of turnips. (Hopefully some of our neighbors moving in next month will have personalities more like bags of freshly cut daisies, or lab puppies, or piles of fresh blueberries!)
So, what do we do when we have no internet, no TV, and nothing to do for the night? Why, buy a bottle of chardonnay and watch Monty Python and The Holy Grail on DVD, of course! You silly English Knnnnnn-ig-its! Bwahaha.

Obv. today we have internet back, and TV as well, but the garage door is still going on a wing, a prayer, and a maintenance ticket. At least we can get out, though. Don't stifle my freedom, electrical storm.



Okay, that's all. I need to take a picture for my 52 this week, and I was planning on going to some local gardens and doing something fun and cool, but the weather is farting in my general direction so I may just go flail about in the marsh behind our house thanks to all the rain! Ahh, getting in touch with nature... :)