Thursday, January 31, 2008

Soggy

What's up!! I can't believe it's almost Friday again! It's been so stinking wet around here, just pouring down rain all night. Poor Pippin has to hold it all day and he hasn't even gotten a break in the rain long enough to really "take his time" in the yard. Brent was nice and took him out with an umbrella so he could at least stay a little dry while having a poo.

Lost tonight was so good! It's nice to have a fresh non-reality/game show on right now during this crap writer's strike. It sucks that 24 isn't going to come back, or that The Office doesn't have any new episodes left. Those are really the only shows we watch, and it just stinks not to have them.

Speaking of crap reality shows, America's Got Talent was here this week auditioning. Of course I had to drive past on my way to work, and prepare to see Nashville in an unflattering light. I didn't see anyone who looked like a star in the motley crew camped outside downtown. I took some pics I'll have to upload here this weekend.

Ok, so I really don't have anything interesting to say! And blame Brent for this rambling because he is DIS-tracting. Have a great weekend!

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Outclassed

Miracle of miracles, our new furniture arrived today! And, exactly on the dot of 7, as promised. The delivery people were really, really nice and took great care getting our furniture in unscratched. And once they left we decided the furniture is just way too nice. Like, nicer than us. Our furniture has a lot more class than we do. It's just so pretty and clean.

Since we had to leave for work right as soon as they came we're just now getting to enjoy them. Aaaaah. I just swapped from the cozy new chair to the cozy new couch. Pippin's also getting adjusted to them, and before we left for work he had gotten 3 licks on the new coffee table and 2 on the new couch. That boy is a licker.....

Work the past week and a half has just been crazy. Thanks to all the craptastic economy we're having to revise all our projections for the year, and it's just not pretty. But that's reality and it has me jumping all day long. Today I didn't even get my lunch time workout in and I just feel so lethargic as a result. Isn't it weird how bad you feel when you don't get to exercise??? It's storming tonight so we didn't get a chance to go for a walk or anything after dinner. It's suddenly 60-something degrees outside, and that always means strong storms are coming through. Our flag out front is completely wrapped around itself

And now I'm going to curl up and laugh some more at these strange people in Omaha trying out for American Idol. All I know is, when Brent and I went to Nebraska we were also less than impressed.

Happy Tuesday!

Monday, January 28, 2008

Can it be true??

Remember how we bought all new living room furniture back in NOVEMBER? Well, November 4th-which is practically like buying furniture in October. Tomorrow am it is supposed to FINALLY be delivered. Yeah, all the "have it before Christmas" crap that he promised us.....not so much. And we bought it from LazyBoy in Cool Springs, so I really wouldn't recommend buying anything from them if you're in the market because we've decided Lazy isn't just their name, it's their style of doing business. But, after over 12 weeks of hounding them and getting them to knock various things off my bill for their lazi-ness we will have new furniture tomorrow!!! All we remember of it is this picture, so I hope we still like it! YAY!

So, what else has been going on??? More work on the new wall going up between our living room and dining room. Brent's wrapping up the last layer of mud tonight, we had hoped to be done before the furniture, but it's not quite going to happen. Hopefully the bulk of the sanding is done. Our house is covered in quite the layer of dust these days, so it's totally pointless to dust, so I don't. One less thing to do! =)

I've been increasing my running to get back in shape for Tom King Half in March. I was doing whatever I wanted at the gym, but now I'm spending 3 of my 4 weekly lunch sessions running and my speed is coming back nicely. I still have a bit of a tender left knee and ankle, which after examining the pair of shoes I wore today - isn't related to running. I haven't had this particular pair too long, but WOW are they worn down. I don't wear my shoes evenly, my heels end up with a wicked slant due to my constant pronation. It's weird, a lot of my running aches are typically due to non-running probs like worn out work/dress shoes. And the crappy thing is we went to our fave shoe store last weekend and all I bought myself was a fab new purse because I thought I was pretty solid in the shoe category. Oh well, just an excuse for more shoe shopping!!!

Speaking of shopping, we hit up the new Le Creuset store in Green Hills last weekend. And buy "hit up" I mean we spent an absolute gob of money, but they are just FABULOUS. I got several all new cherry red pots that I would marry if I could. Last year we bought several new All Clad skillets/pots, but my arsenal was missing the great enameled cast iron Le Creuset offers. And we got an awesome new grill pan that would just make you weep if you saw it. So now between my All Clad and my Le Creuset, and our wonderful and gorgeous kitchen we are set in the cooking department for a while. (Actually a lifetime since that's their guarantee!!) I've been reading in the local gossip rags that LeAnn Rimes shops there all the time, Kelly Clarkson was over there sometime last week and Faith Hill, Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman have all been spotted in the shopping center but of course we didn't see anyone famous, which is pretty much how we normally roll. Of course we probably see famous country people all the time and just don't have a clue who they are.

Yesterday we went to visit Brent's grandma. She fell and broke her hip last week and is in the hospital for a while now while she rehabs. On our way out I told Brent if I were ever to design a hospital I would make it pretty. Do they have to be THAT ugly??? And plain?? Why not have wonderful thread counts and pretty blankets?? I love that pretty much all hotels have gone to nice sheets and down duvets, why can't hospitals??

On our way back to they city we got a call from Mouse, who is down in San Antonio where we're planning to visit for a little sun next month! She was in awe of all the cowboy hats/boots which just cracks us up. I really just don't even believe you don't see that stuff up north. I mean, the Naked Cowboy is in NYC, ya know??? We could blow her mind with all the cowboy paraphernalia here.

Ok, I'm pretty sure that's enough rambling for tonight. I've got to go and give Pippin a bath. We know his ass is going to be all over the new furniture once we leave tomorrow and it might as well be a clean ass.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Spirit of the Marathon Movie

In short, the movie was awesome. I cried twice: once when Deena got bronze and then during the start of the actual marathon. To me, one of the prettiest sights are streets lined with runners, and then all the heads bopping as they start out on their as yet undefined journey. It was very well put together and it made me want to have Deena K as my best friend because she's just too cute, esp with longer hair. And so is Paula Radcliffe with her super cute accent. And I really want to cook Deena a huge dinner because she's just too skinny, even though in the "extra footage" after the movie she said she eats 5,000 calories a day. (No fair on that one.....)

Anyway, it was a great movie and it's my bedtime so I'll have to talk more about it later, but if you get a chance to see the encore "one night only" showing in February go see it!! You'll even forget how @#$@#$@#$@$# cold it is, for a couple of hours anyway.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Maybe it's a thought

Wow! I can't believe I haven't posted since Monday. Oh well, here you go, my link of the week:

Who should you vote for?

Personally, the only one I have given much thought to is Huckabee and that's because he's a runner and a Southerner. Sad, but true. Obviously I still have ions of time to make an informed decision. But according to that quiz I'm 48% McCain, 45% matched to Rudy G, and 40% to Hilary. Me and Huckabee only get a 23% match, he's totally at the bottom.

In my Wii update I have aged greatly this week - I am now 61. I'll never be as Wii young as ShoreTurtle. I may just have to practice a LOT this weekend since it's going to be ASS COLD. Our high tomorrow is only going to be 34, and our low is going to be something in the teens. BLAH!!!!!! I've been looking online all week at trips to warmer spots and maybe we can find something good soon for a nice February trip.

Anyway, stay warm this weekend and have a great one! It's time for me to prop my feet up and wait for Brent to get home with a pizza. TGIF!

Monday, January 14, 2008

Little Pillows on my Feet

Happy Monday! Or, as good as a Monday can ever be!

So the weekend went something like this:

Sat: Work on the house at a leisurely pace: Brent working on running more electrical and drywalling the new wall and me FINALLY painting the last of our white picket fence out front. Thank goodness all fence work is now done!! It's taken forever to get that fence painted - 4 different sessions thanks to short daylight, wind and cold! For "date night" we picked a 'burb, then picked a new restaurant to try, then went grocery shopping at Publix. Sad but that is our idea of a fun date night. At least a love of fine groceries is something we share!! I just wish Publix would build in our neighborhood, it may be time for me to email them again! We tried out Pancho Villa's Mexican Grill in Goodlettsville and it was AWESOME. GREAT service, awesome food and a great value. Tons of food and we only spent $21! Way better than the horrible food we had at Nola's the night before.

Sun: Neither one of us were feeling all that great and it turned super cold here so we spent the afternoon chilling and relaxing. We watched movies, played games & Wii and just chilled. It was a lot of fun! We had brownies for lunch and pizza and popcorn for dinner. It was just a fun day. We did watch Juno which is the best movie ever. It was soooo cute and well done.

So it was back to work today and back to the crowded gym. I FINALLY got my new shoes laced up. I like to lace up to the higher spots so the shoe is tighter around my ankle but the laces they give you are never long enough. I have a pair I just keep trading off from one pair to the next and I've had a new pair of shoes since NOVEMBER and I've just been too busy to take the laces out of the old and into the new. Last night I finally got off my lazy butt since the old ones were really starting to affect me, and today's run was much better!! It was like running with little pillows on my feet, I love the feel of some new sneaks!

Ok, time for me to do my Wii fitness test. My goal is to one day actually be semi-around my age!!! I think it currently tells me I'm 38. Sweet.

Friday, January 11, 2008

More Tales from my Underpants

I think in some high school class we did some graphing of our various "energies" and every so often you hit a low point in your physical, mental, and spiritual energies all at the same time. I am so there this week. Here's today's story for your reading pleasure:

At lunch I always go to the gym. Better to burn calories than consume them. Today I thought my shorts felt strange heading down to the machines. Sort of like they were up my butt, and I tried to readjust them as best I could while walking down the stairs, past the male-studded weight area and towards the cardio section. I did all I could in a Southern, most lady-like way but they still felt super jacked up. I chalked it up to clothing discomfort due to massive bloating and grabbed an elliptical. My ankle is bothering me a bit and I didn't want to pound on it on the treadmill and make it worse. I did my workout, burned some calories, watched some soaps and headed back up to change. At which point I discovered the source of my discomfort: a dryer sheet hanging half in, half out of my shorts. I have no clue if the whole Y saw my "issue", but I'm sort of thinking they might have. Oh well, at least they know my shorts were clean and since it was Friday they'll all have forgotten by Monday.

Add onto that I could never get the answer to a dumb "smarter than a 5th grader" forward a coworker had yesterday, and I still didn't understand it after Googling the answer. Today he sent a "smarter than a 2nd grader" puzzle that took me an hour to figure out. Luckily I don't have any CPE planned and I'm mostly done closing Brent's books for the year and have everything already done for filing his sales tax for his photography sales. (And people, we do ship if you need some awesome art.) Next week will be my smart week. Or maybe I just peaked too early in life? Or maybe I'm getting old??

Tonight we decided (once again) to skip going to the pool and go out to eat instead. We were in the mood for Chinese buffet and decided to try a place on West End we'd spotted a few weeks ago. When we pulled up two homeless guys were literally asking everyone going in and out for money, and inbetween they were tapping on the windows and watching people eat, blatantly. We decided there was no way we wanted to deal with that after a long week, so we kept on driving. We thought we found another buffet further up in a shopping center only to discover it was gone - they had only scratched the name off one side of the sign. We were already parked and I spotted Nola's across the road. They've had good reviews in some of the local "trendy" papers so we thought we'd try it. We should've known it was a bad sign when we were ignored forever while she spoke in a foreign language to someone else, and she only made it under our "walkout" limit by about 15 seconds. Brent had a po boy that was good, and their fries were awesome. I had jambalaya that was so bland. And jambalaya should not be bland. It looked gross and tasted about the same. We normally have a rule about not ordering dishes that we make an awesome version of (we have a killer jambalaya recipe) but I thought I could get some tips from an authentic restaurant. Anyway, the sandwich plus jambalaya + water was $23 and worth about $10, so we won't be back. Afterwards we stopped for some ice cream, which was much better than dinner!!!

Anyway, the lappy battery is almost dead so it's time to sign off! TGIF!

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Blee Blahs continued

Today has been a strange day. Brent thought it was Thursday, then was convinced it was Wednesday and emailed me to tell me how bummed he was that it was just Wed. So then I literally had to convince him it really was Thursday!! And me - well, today I am more of an embarrassment. I got some really cute new ruffly undies a couple of weeks ago and about 9 am in the bathroom this morning I realized that all those ruffles make some seriously odd pantylines. And there's not much worse than weird pantylines. Luckily I was wearing a wrappy-type sweater over a long sleeve shirt today so I could sort of pull it down a lot (although nowhere near enough). Needless to say my rear end was planted a little more than usual in my own desk today.

I had a seriously craptastic run today. It just wasn't in me, so after a mile I called it quits and hopped on the elliptical to get my All my Children fix. Yes, I have become a total soap addict since joining the gym last April. It happened slowly, but now I am all about knowing what's going on with my peeps, and pretty mad when I can't see a TV with captioning or get a machine with a TV. I guess I am now officially a gym junkie. And I was officially one of "those people" who got seriously mad the weather guy for interrupting the last 5 mins I had to watch the show with serious tornado threats to our northern burbs. Can't he just run something at the bottom of the screen??? Now I won't know what happened with Hannah and Zach until tomorrow. Blah.

Ok, enough driveling. Have a great weekend everyone!!! I got the bathroom ceiling painted already this week and I think we're going to tag team our living room ceiling tonight, so that's just more relax time this weekend! Brent got all the drywall up on our new wall last night and even the first coat of mud! SWEET!!!

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

The Land of the Blee-Blahs

It seems I just have nothing interesting to say. I mean, I could bore you with boring workouts stats with paces and even make up a HR or two, but there's really not much exciting about tales of that sort. I could tell you how warm it's been here (70+ degrees!!) but you guys know it's warm here because it's pretty much warm everywhere right now. I could go into the details of our latest home improvement project (Brent's drilling for new electrical outlets into our new wall right now), but that's not terribly exciting either. I did get the very last window and door painted in our house last weekend, which is PRETTY FREAKING exciting, to me anyway, considering we've been painting window after window and door after door for a year and a half now. And I did get the very last spec of baby blue - the ceiling in our foyer - painted over the weekend, but I think you've already gotten the point that we do a crap load of work around here pretty much all the time.

I think I just have a general case of the blogging blee blahs rights now. Nothing exciting to say for no particular reason. Maybe it's some sort of "winter"/post Christmas case of the blahs. I know I needed to do some things (paint our bathroom ceiling) tonight, but curling up with an afghan and Pippin and watched that bizarre Dancing with the Stars-esque show that I TiVod yesterday just sounded more appealing. I did manage to balance 4 of our bank accounts, that's not bad! Anyway, I'll download the 3billion pics on my camera soon and I'm sure that will give me something exciting to talk about! Take care!

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you've all had great ones so far.

We celebrated New Years at a friend's low-key party just a few blocks over. It was a PJ party theme so everyone was nice and comfy and we counted the old year down together with lots of good food and laughs. On New Years, our 9th wedding anniversary, we headed out to do some returning and some shopping. We snapped up some of the big markdowns on clothes out there and had lunch at a Mexican joint before heading to our neighbors New Years Day brunch. (Although at 1:30 with food not being served until 3 does that still count as brunch???) The rest of the day we chilled and watching I Am Legend which totally sucked, was completely depressing, had no plot and isn't something I would recommend watching on your anniversary. At all.

After that it's been back to work for us at our jobs and on our house. We've got lots o' plans for this year and no time to waste. We had declared a "holiday hiatus" from Thanksgiving to the New Year on big projects. Last year was so miserable trying to get everything done while redoing our bedroom floors. This year once we got past all the irritating shopping and spending we had some seriously nice downtime. But even that gets old and on New Years Eve (when it was 60-something degrees) the paint brushes came back out and we got most of the rest of our front white picket fence repainted. We couldn't quite get it all, but there's not much left to do. Then we started removing a threshold this week where we're planning to add a wall, and we got most of the trim repainted in our living room. The plan this weekend is to head to the Home Depot and get some studs and drywall to get on adding the new wall. Good times!! I've sort of missed my paintbrush, I've got so much to catch her up on!

And the gym was B-A-N-A-N-A-S this week. Seriously insane. I can't wait for all these new people to fall off the workout wagon. One day a lady was wearing her turtleneck and jewelry on the elliptical, like all she had done was change out of her work slacks and hop on the machine. I've also seen jeans and cargo shorts on the workout floor, and yesterday one girl got about 15 calories burned since she was more interested in talking on her cell than working out.

Anyway, my sweet husband is making me some breakfast so it's time to go! And good luck to the Titans this week, even though I'm feeling like they're going to get their asses absolutely handed to them.