Will Power

I just had the most phenomenal ice cream sandwich. I want another it was THAT good. Must resist the evil freezer.....

Playing with your food

Sorry for being MIA lately. A little bit of wrist/hand surgery two weeks ago (more on that later) has somewhat slowed down my typing/texting. Don't get me wrong...I still do it...especially texting..it just takes me a bit longer.

Chloe has been keeping me company during my recuperation and has provided endless amounts of entertainment as only she can.

I think this video puts a whole new spin on fast food delivery....

The Woes of Home Ownership - Garbage Disposal 101

It has been a seriously crazy last two days. Chloe was sick and at the vet on Saturday...started with excessive vomiting and by last night had moved on to coming out the other end in a sloppy mess all over my house. Thankfully, we seem to have moved on from this gross and smelly issue, and the little Chloe digestive pipes seem to be working as they should....

But to top the doggie digestive woes off, yesterday my kitchen sink started backing up on top of a garbage disposal. To be honest, ever since I moved in, the disposal really hasn't worked all that well an issue that I think would be best blamed on the same woman that lived here a few years ago and flushed so many tampons down the toilet that my brother (who lived in my current house before I moved in) walked into his bathroom one day after moving in and found the plumbing had backed up into in shower. I'm thinking that was one of those times where the reality really is a lot grosser than it sounds.

Anyway...not having a kitchen sink, even for one hour when you have a dog that is pooping all over your house is a bit of a problem. So after a lovely dinner, I convinced my parents to come over to my place to take a look....and by parents I mean, I asked my mom and since my dad was driving, he came along too. 

After poking around with a flash light and tongs, my dad, in all his infinite plumbing wisdom - which is one of the reasons I tend to let my mom handle all the handyman kinds of things....at least I know that if she doesn't know the answer to something she's not pulling some theory out of her ass....something I'm never sure about with my day. Anyway...my dad tells me that he thinks I need a new garbage disposal and that he can install it for me, no problem. In reality...this is a problem since it's now 8:00 on a Sunday night and he leaves for California on Monday morning for the week. There was no way in hell I was going to be able to not have a functioning kitchen sink for a whole week.

We stood around my disappointing sink, debating our options for a few minutes before my dad decides to call in a favor and get a plumber out to my house on Monday morning to unclog my sink and put in a new garbage disposal.

So good old Joe the Plumber (no...really...his name actually was Joe) came out to my house this morning and as I'm walking him over to my sink, I'm telling him that you know, the disposal has never really worked properly and now it's not draining well, and that my dad thinks maybe I need a new one and all the while, I'm wondering how long the whole replacement will take and how much it will cost because frankly these days I'm pretty short on both time and money.... 

Less than one minute, zero dollars, and this little nifty tool later....

My garbage disposal works like a charm. To say I felt like an idiot is an understatement....

Trained to Disobey the Rules....

Big sorry for being gone lately.  After six weeks of summer camp a.k.a. dog training, I stole Chloe home and getting back on some sort of routine has been a bit difficult. No more peacefully sleeping in until 9am. That's not how Chloe rolls...especially when there are kitties to chase around the house at the butt crack of dawn.

So how did Chloe do at doggie training? Well here...I have a picture to demonstrate...

Sleeping on the shops check out counter is strictly forbidden in the doggie training world. Something to do with putting her in a superior position or some BS like that. Whatever...she's happy, she's quiet, and she sleeps up there....

So I think it's pretty safe to say that six weeks of dog training was not overly successful in breaking me of my bad habits....oh well.

Who could say no to that face?!

Corporate America Drop-Out

I grew up with a father that put on a suit and tie every day and went to work in Corporate America. Naturally, I just assumed, for one reason or another that I would end up spending my days in an office building, running reports, meeting, and having lunch in a cafeteria. You know...somewhere that looks like this...

Instead, I ended up here...

I recently read this quote that fits me, and what I've made of that assumption, perfectly.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be." 

Douglas Adams

Wine, Wine, and more Wine.

I can honestly say that I have very few memories of my parents drinking alcohol when I was a child. Certainly never my mother, and I can only remember my dad drinking the occasional beer at a basketball game or a vodka and tonic when he was grilling or mowing the lawn....which looking back now seems like  two occasions when I would be least likely to drink...when I was playing with fire or when I was playing with things that could cut my fingers off...but to each his own...

Since I've reached adulthood though...they've more than made up for those 18-21 years of abstaining.

For example....I'm at my parents house for dinner tonight. I look over across the kitchen and my dad is standing in his wine nook....the one that has the wine fridge that keeps all 99 bottles of his precious red wine at a consistent 60 degrees...to see him talking on the phone and opening a bottle of wine with one of these:

It's an automatic wine bottle opener. If the combo of a 99 bottle wine fridge and an automatic wine bottle opener doesn't scream out of control wine-o then I really don't know what does...

Stuffed Sausage a la Shanky

Since Chloe hasn't been home, my "special" cat Shanky has taken to sleeping in Chloe's bed....which is fine, since Chloe didn't like this bed all that much anyway....

The only real problem is the bed is made for an animal a quarter of her size....so it's a bit of a tight squeeze...

She's not fat. She's just big boned.

Hey Soul Sister....

I received a lovely email from a good friend the other day that said something along the lines of....girl, you gotta go blog....I need something to keep me entertained. I really am glad that at least someone is entertained by me as much as I am, but truth be told, nothing blog-worthy happened to me this week. As proof...here is a picture of how I spent my 4th of July weekend (or at least a part of it)...

Cleaning windows and washing spider webs off the house in South Carolina....in bright pink flip flops. 

Thrilling.

And no...the title of this blog post has absolutely nothing to do with the actual post. I couldn't think of anything clever to describe my weekend full of free child labor (ok...weekend is an exaggeration...) but I can't get Train's "Hey Soul Sister" out of my head...so there you have it...enjoy!

Happy Fourth of July!!

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Pursue happiness today...even if it's at the bottom of a margarita glass! Happiness comes in all shapes and sizes!!

On a side note...there is now a 4th of July baby in my family. Am I the only one who thinks that is the coolest thing EVER?? Congrats to my cousin Jimmy and his wife Tammy on the birth of Emily Grace!

Fashion Friday - Shoes mimic Art

Oh. My. God. How beautiful are these shoes from ModCloth? Aptly named "The Amadeus heel" if they weren't so impractical to my lifestyle these days and they weren't $120, they would totally be on their way to my closet as we speak....

Safety in Peanut Butter

Started dieting yesterday. There's almost 100 days until the wedding which is essentially like three months. and three months seems like a good amount of time for me to lose ten pounds and get over the bitchy attitude that calorie counting always gives me in order for me to fully enjoy the way I will look in a yellow silk dress with a sash around my waist. 

Day one was a failure....day two started out promising but ended up with a teaspoon of peanut butter at 11 pm directly from the peanut butter jar. My almost midnight forray into the pantry did reap one benefit though...it somehow reminded me that I hadn't set my security alarm tonight. Peanut butter...security alarm. I definitely see the correlation, but considering I somehow managed to forget to close my garage door last night I'll take the subconscious reminders wherever I can get them...even from the bottom of the peanut butter jar.

Light Switches and OCD

Let me preface this by saying - yes I am weird. I know this.

I have two sets of light switches in my new house. One set, in the kitchen, turns on the kitchen lights and the living room lights. The second set, in my hallway, turns on the living room lights and the hall light. Because both sets turn on/off the living room lights it's easy for the light switches to start looking like this:

I know...gasp right? But they can't look like that though. They have to look like this:

If they look like that first picture, I can't sleep at night. It makes me insane. I guess there's a little bit of OCD in all of us...

A Summer Dream Vacation

Who knows when I'm going to get to go on a substantial vacation (as in not to visit relatives or to the family house in SC)? Not that there has been a lack of opportunity...merging with Monica and Sweet Emotion has taken care of that pesky little who will watch the boutique when I'm gone question. No...not a lack of opportunity...more like a lack of funds. Typical. Therefore I'm planning what my dream vacation would look like, at least for this summer, if I were so fortunate to get to go on one....

Europe of course.

London

London Bridge, Big Ben, Harrods, and the Harry Potter bus ;)

The English Countryside

The Country (in general), The Stonehenge, Canterbury, Cambridge

Paris

Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, The Louvre, Moulin Rouge, Notre Dame, The Panthéon

The French Countryside

The French Riviera, Normandy, Versailles, Provence

Rome

The Vatican, The Colosseum, St. Peter's, Sistine Chapel

The rest of Italy

The French Riviera, Tuscany, Venice, The Leaning Tower of Pisa

I think this is a pretty good start don't you??

Ghosts of Fake Boyfriends Past

The New Kids on the Block and The Backstreet Boys...all on one stage?! My seven year old self and my seventeen year old self just turned towards each other, clutched hands, and started jumping up and down screaming. This is like having like a dream come true that I never even knew I had....

Sleepless nights and Father's Day Pictures

My mom picks me up for our Monday morning breakfast date this morning and, we're barely out of the driveway before she says that she woke up this morning at 2am and couldn't fall back asleep. I'm thinking she's going to tell me that something she ate at Father's Day dinner didn't sit well or something. 

But no....

She goes on to tell me that at 2:00 this morning, she suddenly realized that, while she got Father's Day pictures of my brother and my father, my brother, my father, and my nephew, and my brother, his fiancee and my nephew, she failed to get a picture of my father, my brother, and myself or myself and my father. So being a good daughter and thinking that she feels bad because she made me feel neglected or something, I promptly reassure her that I didn't even notice (which I didn't) and that it really isn't that big of a deal. Turns out she wasn't really worried about my feelings....she turns to me and says....But your hair looked so good!

Thanks Mom. I guess from that statement alone, I can assume that on any normal day, my hair doesn't look good, and therefore it's noteworthy when I do show up somewhere with presentable hair. Fine. Ok. Here's the deal....I promise that one day next weekend I'll force myself out of the depths of my normally sloppy hair style and make it look good again for your fake Father's Day pictures...Now go to sleep like a good little mommy....

Happy Fathers Day 2010

To the man that played "My Girl" by The Temptations on the car radio at the beach when I was five and declared it our song.  Who lectured me when I was seven to never drink and drive and that if I ever needed him  to, he would come pick me up, no questions asked. Who told me when I was eight to never bring home a guy with a multi-colored mohawk  or he would be forced to chase him out of the house with his 2 iron. Who taught my the value of a firm handshake. Who told me I could be anything I wanted to be and stands firmly behind me as I chase my dreams....

To my favorite daddy in the whole wide world - and I know a lot of daddies in this world - Happy Father's Day.

My Epiphany - Bucket Lists, Balls and Chains, and Babies

Every time I go to the book store it's inevitable that I end up in the self help section. More often than not, I walk away without picking up anything and today was no exception, but there was a book title that caught my eye -

No Regrets: 101 Fabulous Things to Do Before You're Too Old, Married, or Pregnant 

by Sarah Ivens

My initial reaction was - I have got to have this book - but after a quick flip through, I realized that, out of the 101 things Ivens recommends to do (Ditch Toxic Friends, Buy Sexy Underwear, Get Lash Extensions) the majority were either common sense, I've already done, or I really have zero desire to do. But, the title and subject of the book got me thinking in two different directions....

First - I need a "Bucket List" of things I want to do or see. Completing it doesn't matter, it's having goals and dreams organized in one central place that counts.

Second - is more of a light bulb moment that the title of this book helped turn on. Contrary to popular social norms, contrary to what I should do or should want, I am in absolutely no hurry to go off and get married or have children. Sure, it would be nice to be in a nice, stable, healthy relationship. And sure, one day I do want to be married and to have children but why on earth do I want to hurry that? Right now, without all that, I'm free. Free to do what I want, spend what I want, go where I want....I spent two hours in Borders today just wandering around....think I could do that with a child under the age of like 12? Hell no. Mommy I'm bored. Mommy I have to pee. Mommy I'm thirsty. Yeah...no thanks. Frankly, I'm way too selfish in this stage of my life and you know what? I think that's perfectly ok. I'm better off realizing that now than going off, marrying some guy out of hand because OH MY GOD I'M ALMOST 30!! Getting all preggers a few times and then realizing that I want my old life back. That's why people get divorced and kids end up in juvie.

So sure...marriage...fantastic idea...but don't plan on seeing any Save the Dates in the mail from me any time soon. I got a Bucket List to write and at least 50 adventures to go on before I saddle myself with the old ball and chain and a few car seats....sorry Grandma.

A Dog of a Problem....

I wrote a blog here about how I've been on a quest to meet more people and make more friends and that one way I was doing that was by starting a few meet up groups. One of those meet ups - the South Tampa Small Dogs meet up has its first meeting this Saturday. Does anyone else see anything wrong with this??

I HAVE NO DOG THIS WEEKEND!!! This might be a problem....

Chloe's Countdown Clock

 Of course we have to have a little countdown clock to countdown the number of days until my puppy is supposed to come home! I say "supposed to" because , even though Clarke assured me he could train her in 14 days, he doesn't know my stubborn and opinionated puppy like I do....she might still be there at Christmas time, no closer to sitting on command, if we're not careful...  

 I will admit though...I woke up this morning at 9 (my normal Chloe wake up call comes around 6:30am each day) and thought to myself....huh....so THIS was what my life was like before I got a puppy...I'd forgotten how wonderful it was to sleep in and wake up when I wanted to wake up. Maybe if all goes well I can get Clarke to train Chloe to walk herself in the morning...that would be glorious...

Comfort Shopping

Dropped Chloe off around 2:30 today at Doggie Summer Camp.

Got into the car and sobbed uncontrollably.

Then drove to the cheap shoe store and the grocery store, drowned my sorrows with an $8 pair of shoes and a pile of junk food.

If I'm like this dropping my dog off for two weeks, how on earth will I manage to one day drop my unborn children off at college?? Good news is I have at LEAST 20 years to figure that one out....

Shipping Chloe Off...

Tonight is Chloe and my last night together for at least two weeks.

Tomorrow afternoon I drop her off at what could be considered one of three things - the doggie spa, doggie boot camp, or doggie summer camp. Although, truth be told - it's probably not the spa...there will be no manicures or massages. Boot camp is probably too harsh of terminology since she won't be yelled at. So doggie summer camp is actually probably the most accurate of the three - every now and then she'll be forced to do something she doesn't want to do..like arts and crafts or campfire sing-a-longs, but for the most part, the good will far outweigh the bad.

I am going to miss her warm little body snuggled up next to me...but hopefully at the end of the two weeks, we will both have learned to listen and obey when necessary....although I'm not holding out much hope for myself when it comes to obeying....

Bye bye pup pup...don't forget to write your mama every now and then!