Things that happened yesterday

1. I couldnt upload my photos b/c I'm fairly certain my mac, flickr, and my thumb drive all hate me. I wanted to share them with Eric before I uploaded them to the blog/facebook. But that just might not happen... haha..Do you flickr? I've never done it, but I paid for the upgrade and am now having issues uploading photos. *grrrr* I have to upload them like 10 at a time...which is hard for me...since I have 200 pics from Denver.

2. I was driving when an adorable golden retriever walked in front of my car in my neighborhood. Well, you know I can't resist that. *sigh* So, I got out and it came to me. I opened the back door and in she jumped. Sheesh. We drove around for awhile, but no one was out looking that I could see... so she came home with me. The rest of the evening was filled with poster making, etc. Good news though...her owner called me! Family and 12 year old Gretel the dog were reunited around 9pm last night! :) I think I like dogs more than a lot of people sometimes. Just sayin. And I also think I'd almost convinced myself to keep her if I never found her owners. This, my friends, is why I cannot ever volunteer for animal shelters. I would have a zoo at home. 100% sure.

3. Oh yeah.. and um.. Eric's house was broken into. Yeah, you read that right. :( They didn't take a ton of stuff (thankfully), but he's got to make some serious repairs today. I took a photo of where they broke in. Bananas! I won't go into details b/c this is the public internet...and talking about a crime where suspects are still missing is weird...but blah. I feel so badly for him. He's dealing with it much better than I would. But, he deals with a lot of things better than I would.. haha.. (He's way more even-keeled than my sometimes-over-emotional self). I'm so over this crime wave that seems to be happening in our city lately. I know crime heats up in summer, but if you're in the area, don't you feel like it's been so much worse this year?! :(

Happy Monday!

Heeeeelllo and welcome to Monday! How was the weekend?

Mine=fabulous! But, we got in from Colorado LATE last night, so the pics and the bloggage will have to wait.

So, this is random, but while in flight yesterday, I was thinking something... I was thinking how I wasn't really looking forward to coming back to work today.

And that bummed me out a little...

I mean.. who wants to come back from vacation? Duh. But it was just kinda different.

I really like my coworkers.

I totally dig my job.

But I genuinely looked forward to a lot of things about my last job.

And to seeing my work family. B/c that's what they were...

I realize that sounds lame.

And I was definitely ready to move on, past my role at my previous company. 100% certain on that.

Recently, I've just been getting weird lately b/c some of the stuff I was promised isn't exactly coming to fruition and I'm putting a lot of bandaids on things instead of actually fixing the system like I want to...

...which is alright and I don't mind

I think I'm just getting a little frustrated or something...

...and starting to wonder what my next step will be for my long term career path if this is all just bandaids after a few years, ya know...

Ahhh...always going with an eye on the future, huh... Ambitious Jax.. *laughing at self*

So, that's that.. :) Moving on....

Even as tired as I am, guess what came with me to work today----my gym bag! I'm so impressed with myself, people. Getting started is definitely the hardest part, but once I get on a roll, NOT working out feels...well...odd. (And it didn't hurt that Eric mentioned he'd noticed. I mean.. I think I noticed but that could have also been in my head...haha.. But, his confirmation made me want to work out MORE!)

Now that we've gone to Colorado (and had a blast!), I'm switching gears to get pumped for MAUI! It's so weird to start getting excited for something in October. I love summer, so I'm conflicted about getting excited for anything involving colder months! It's kinda comical. I'm like "YAY Maui..wait.. no..I'm not ready for winter...but YAY MAUI!"

Yes, it's lunchtime, but my waterproof camera is practically burning a hole in my handbag b/c I'm so ready to develop my rafting pics! Ah, gotta love the old school waterproof cameras... Planning to blog during the season finale of Bachelorette tonight! Are you watching?! Who do you want her to pick?!

Thursday Things

Happy Thursday..and it's kinda my Friday!!!! (since Eric and I will be in Colorado this weekend! YAY!)

So, I'm blogging randomness I'm excited about and feel the compulsion to share. First thing.. I just realized next week is... wait for it...wait for it... JUST THE MOST EXCITING TV WEEK OF ALL TIME... better known as SHARK WEEK! Okay, maybe I'm being a leetle overdramatic, but I love Shark Week. A lot. Bucket list item: cage shark dive. and not with wussy sharks. with tigers or hammerheads or great whites. Yes, I'm serious.

*imagine me pretending to be a shark at my desk...b/c it just happened*

And Jen blogged about this yesterday... I'd had NO idea. I'm so excited about this! Did you read Sweet Valley High when you were younger?! I read it, I watched the tv show, I was a junkie for those stories! Anyway, the writer is coming out with a "10 years later" book! Love.it.

Do you need hours of entertainment...or at least a few minutes? My friend at work sent me this blog and um.. it's silent-laugh-mode hilarious. It makes fun of all the catalog scenes in things like p!ttery barn, etc. Here: Catalog Living.

Finally, my friend just joined the bloggy world! If you have a moment, pop over and say hello and welcome her to the blogtastic community! (I like saying things like "bloggy" and "blogtastic" and pretty much any other random made up word involving 'blog') :) Heather's blog.

Hope everyone is gearing up for a fabulous weekend! If anyone has suggestions of things to see, do, eat, shop, whatever in Denver, please let me know! We have some things planned, but will still have plenty of free time to check stuff out!

{Girls} Weekend Recap!

I was trying to upload all my pics to flickr to share with the girls, but flickr is being a b*tch for some reason (think 2hrs and only 27 photos uploaded of 90), so I've already got em on the blog and am gonna go ahead and post... :)

So, last weekend, a group of girls...rephrase... a group of very dear friends... set off for the lake to have the first official girls trip we've had in a very long time. All were sorority sisters at the fine U of Tulsa back in the day. While in some ways we all met/became close friends at varying times, we've all come together form a great friend group I'm blessed to be a part of. :)

On a light note, we've been through everything from rush to pledge pranks gone awry to study hours to final exams. On a more serious note, we've been through the loss of family members, the birth of new and adorable additions, first homes, second homes, graduate schools, new cities... I could go on and on.

These girls are the reason(s) I ever even started a blog! When we all started moving apart and beginning our "grown up" lives, it became harder to keep in touch. Kat started hers first and a couple others followed. Since I'm a picture-a-holic, I wanted to be able to post pics of the wedding showers, baby showers, etc, we all were going to somewhere other than facebook and communicate with these girls! The blog was born! Granted, that was my OLD blog which I've since gotten rid of (circa 2005...crazy, huh?!)

So, after many excited tweets and emails, we had a fabulous girls weekend... and here it is...in photos! :)

We've arrived! (Well, most of us...Jennifer was on her way)

Below: Caitlin, me, Jenny, Sarah, Brooke, Kat, Audra.

Where had we arrived? Here! A pretty house situated on Table Rock lake :) We had the whole house... except for the part where the B&B owners lived downstairs.. :)
Relaxing and gorgeous. :)
We brought a lot of this...
And Ashley made us some of these (YUM!!!) even though she couldn't come since she just had baby Cooper... (Thank you again, Ashley!)
5 of the 8 girls have a little one (or one on the way)... so this was especially funny...
Doing the "v" pose. Don't ask. But please look at Jenny's face b/c it's awesome. There's a story behind it (so yes, it's intentional). :) (White shirt, lower right). This is officially everyone who was there. :)
Made dinner and self timed a photo... :)
The rest of the night was filled with some profanity..er...I mean.. old college stories, and lots of laughs about too many things to list. :)

I have no idea. We had a lot of wine.(I have like 10 pics of some our feet like this) I am constantly reminded why I'm glad facebook didn't exist when we were in college.
Breakfast prepared by the fabulous B&B owners! :) Candelit breakfast with homemade food.. dont mind if I do!
Sooo, after breakfast, we set off for the outlet mall. And got stuck in traffic. Sooo what do you do when stuck in traffic? Take photos in Jennifer's hat, of course! (Why did you even ask?) ;)

The hat owner rocking it first... the rest of us after....







And after outlet shopping....

....we went for lunch and to celebrate tequila day (b/c it was tequila day, people. We saw it on twitter. Twitter doesn't lie). So, we had a salt rimmed beverage and then did this...

And then..... we also may have done this...

I kinda wanted to pose funnier, but they're very strict about their old time photos. *nervous face*

Watched some tv.. for about 5 seconds... til we decided to do something different.. but it was cute. I think it was cuter in my head b/c none of our tv watching-all together-photos came out flattering. Whatever.

Then, somone found a puzzle. A 600 piece puzzle. It seemed like a good idea, but Sarah, Jenny, Caitlin, and me weren't into sitting inside and putting togther a puzzle. But, after all the outlet malling, old time photo-ing, and margarita-ing, we didn't really want to do anything else either, so we opted to give them a hard time while they constructed said puzzle... (and got ignored. see below).

Finally, we opted to just join in and make the puzzle magic happen so we could go do something else. That said, in approximately 1 minute, we were all creepily engaged/obsessed in assembling this puzzle... It was comical.

We got to the last piece...and realized it was MISSING. Yes, it really was.
...until Jenny found it. She's very excited. (I actually made her re-enact finding it for this pic..hence the overdramatization... haha)
I have a ton of puzzle pics... the "where is the last piece" pics, the "inserting the last piece" pics, etc.. but I opted to spare you from them and just know we were having a good time with the puzzle drama. And yes, girls weekends are definitely more tame as we've gotten older. Obviously.
So, the night before, we'd gotten a little intoxicated...er... I mean been a little too loud on the patio. The owners were so sweet and didn't say anything, but really.. when we all get to talking at the same time.. in 4 different convos, we start to sound like vuvuzelas from the world cup. Really. Since the owners live below the b&b, we opted to be more respectful and went to the loft area of the main suite.. which is also a jacuzzi tub area. Hilarious!
Sunday morning, we packed up our stuff, signed some of the guest books, and headed back to our respective homes in our respective cities. A little bloated from all the unhealthy food, a little hungover from all the wine (minus Jennifer, who's pregant. On that note, she gets tons of props for dealing with our wine induced stories/volume level...haha). All in all....an absolutely fantastic weekend with some of my absolutely favorite people on this planet. :)
Many thanks to Kat and Jenny for putting last weekend together! It was such a much needed trip and I really hope we start doing it every year! :)

Monday surprises at work make me smile :)

That guy I date.. ya know... Eric..... yeah... He kinda made my day just now. :)

Have a great Monday, everyone! *still smiling*

This post is likely b/c I'm tired.

Hi peeps! Girls weekend at the lake=a total blast! I'm tired so pics will wait til tomorrow, but they're all uploaded and edited...(this info is more for the girls on the trip so they don't think I went and forgot. Love you, hottnesses!)

A quick post tonight...

My roomie's dog and mine are friends...see?

But, when my roomies dog...(see below)
...is outside tonight like this...
...and then IMMEDIATELY walks in and does this....
I kinda lose it a little...

Just.sayin.

I really love her dog...but...

(yes, the pic is gross. sorry.)

Anyway.....

Hope you had a great weekend! :)

GUESS WHAT?!

You can likely tell from the extremely artistic rendering, but in case it's not 100% clear (haha)

...... ERIC AND I ARE GOING TO HAWAII!!!!!!!!!!!!

We've wanted to book something for the fall...aka when the Caribbean is in hurricane season. Sure there's trip insurance, but that just means no vacation if a hurricane comes....or being stuck in one. Both not fun options. So, we started looking stateside...and couldn't decide. We looked in Mexico, but again, couldn't decide... and we didn't really want to go all-inclusive b/c we're explorers of sorts and don't like being stuck one place for meals, etc. (Granted, all inclusives are kinda awesomesauce). We looked at Canada, but Oct/Nov might not be the most fun in Canada (brrrr!!). We did a random search for Hawaii and low and behold, the fall is "shoulder season" aka rates are EXTREMELY low to get there. THEN, the hotel Eric's parents loved is having some minor construction onsite, sooo rates are like 70% off. It was as though someone was screaming "ARE YOU MORONS?! BOOK THIS RIGHT NOW!" We're going to Hawaii more cheaply than we'd be going almost anywhere else we looked beach-related. YEEHAW!

My logical brain kept saying "Save money. SAVE MONEY." But, everything else was saying "Hey, Planny McPlannerson, do it. You're single, don't have children yet, and might as well go see as much as you can!"

So, it's obvious which side won.

I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!!

We're going to Maui.. tips/advice/recommendations appreciated! :)

(last) weekend pics....and this weekend's recap!

From the jalapeno hand weekend... with this weekend's recap below it... :)

Jalapeno Hand weekend:

Me with my corn dip! Note my shirt. Remember when it was a dress? Yeah, well.. lesson in not buying things from Tar-jay (yeah, I said tar-jay. I hear that's cliche. so sue me. whatever). and expecting them to stand the test of time. :( I didn't even dry it! Hell. Whatever. Check out my cute, new shirt then! ha!

Eric's friend had a hulk hand (it was really soft despite how it looks), that said something like "Hulk scores!" or something (I dont remember) when you touched anything. Check out Eric pretend cowering as I look semi crazy. (the crazy wasn't intentional, but I really do look a little maniacal. Nervous). ;)
Eric with the hand looking threatening. (Being threatening in a papasan takes away a couple intimidation points) ;)
The girls..
The guys...
Did I tell you we decided to go play laser tag? ha! Yeah, we did. I'd never played. We got put in the (very hot) maze with a bunch of high schoolers likely wired on 5 hour energy....b/c I dont ever remember being that excited about anything in high school. I didn't know how to adequately shoot my gun and ended up getting a tinge frustrated. Have I mentioned I'm competitive? Yeah. Not as much as I used to be before law school, but sometimes it comes back. I don't throw a tantrum or anything stupid, but I was definitely pouty in my head b/c I placed something like 19th. *cringe* It was fun, though...have to admit.

Oh and um.. saw this randomly hilarious picture and thought "whoa!" I drew an arrow to show you what I'm referring to... Be scared of these guns, peeps. I haven't been doing tricep dips for nuthin. ;) I'm so intimidating...haha...right. This is the right lighting with the right angle with a heavy handbag. But still...

Here we are, girls holding their scorecards! (I'm fake smiling b/c I was a little miffed that I lost so badly but was trying to not be a baby...haha!)

*********

Now this this last weekend!

Well, I didn't take any photos. *shrugs* Didn't do much Friday. Saturday, got up SUPER early and took my car in for a long overdue oil change, tire rotation, etc. Do you feel so victorious when you do car errands? Yes, that's a girly thing to say, but dangit I feel good when I do it.

Anyway, my car got a great report (I was totally thinking they'd tell my lead-footed self I need break pads soooo that was excellent news). Then, I headed to the gym! Yes, peeps.. on a Saturday morning...before 9:30. (In case I've never mentioned, I'm not a morning person. Never have been. Never will be.) Was home and in my swim attire ready for a random day at our local water park with some of Eric's friends..very proud of myself I might add..feeling so good about how much I'd gotten done and going to enjoy some sun when...peeps canceled. Grr! *stomping foot and actually growling*

No curly slides. No intertubes. No overpriced entrance fee. No acting like a 12 year old. No wave pool. Hmph. (I really wasn't that upset; just being dramatic)

So, I proceeded to sit in my bikini/coverup and research tropical vacations whilst watching the travel channel, smelling like my pre-applied sunblock (I'm prepared) and pouting a little that I'd hurried to get a lot accomplished and had then been halted... All in all, I'm glad we didn't go though b/c it was freaking 100 degrees outside and that would have been miserable. And since we didn't go, Eric got some extra studying in so we went to dinner then out to the riverwalk for dessert for a bit.. We'd wanted to see a movie Saturday night, but we're old were just too tired.

BUUUUUT, we saw it Sunday! What movie was it?

Inception! Have you seen it? Cause um.. it was right up this Lost watcher's alley. Loved.it. Confusing as hell during some parts, but really dug it.

And yep.. that was the weekend. Didn't do a ton, but a good one overall for sure! :) Is it SO HOT where you are right now? We have crazy heat advisories going on! I feel like I'm baking myself when I walk outside. Hope your week has started off well!

Morsels of randomness

Yeah yeah.. I'm lazy and haven't uploaded the weekend's photos yet.. haha.. But, for some randomness:

1. A few of you asked for the spicy corn dip recipe. It's so easy and heeeeere it is: RECIPE. :) Just please...remember to wear gloves unless you want to join the jalapeno hand club. :)

2. My roommate just told me she has pink eye. And has had it for three days. She's on meds...now. But, that might have been good info to have a few days ago...haha.. Sooo.. cross your fingers that I don't get the elementary school illness of freaking pink eye.

3. Eric's new neighbors moved in a week or two ago during the night and are nice...enough. But apparently had goats at their house.. and when asked about it by another neighbor, they said they were going to kill them. And they did. In the backyard. To eat. Eric said he thought a child had been crying or something. I'm so disgusted and disturbed and I'll refrain from a tangent about this... for now. Gracie is never going to Eric's house. That's all I'm sayin. (and yes, Eric lives in a nice little neighborhood...not on a farm. Crazy!)

4. I have a girls weekend NEXT WEEKEND and am SO excited I can barely stand it! :) A group of us have rented a house on the lake and are gearing up for some laughter, wine, outlet shopping, and overall awesomeness. Then....Eric and I are headed to COLORADO for a concert! I've never been to Colorado in the summer...or in YEARS for that matter! I'm so excited, I google photos of Colorado when I need a break from work...haha.. :) We're still thinking about planning a longer vacay for the fall, so who knows...but right now I'm excited for some long weekend fantabulousness with good peeps! This is coming from someone who hasn't taken a formal (non holiday) day off since long before I switched jobs! (left old job on a Tuesday, started new one on that Wednesday).

5. I've been sticking with this working out and eating well thing. I mean.. I don't eat tofu for ever meal or anything...by any means... but I've been snacking healthier and hitting the gym even when I'm unmotivated. Jax=proud of herself. :) (no idea why I just said that in third person. Sorry).

6. I went to get my birth control today and was informed it now has a generic. That's good...right? Sure. EXCEPT I now I have virtually no choice but to take the generic b/c the nongeneric shot up to 80 bucks under my insurance since a generic is now available. Arg. I've read mixed reviews online about it being 100% fine...all the way to it causing chest and stomach pains. Arg. We shall see, huh... That was all TMI, but it is what it is.

7. Ohmygosh, so do you have a carbon monoxide detector? If your answer is no, this story is about to scare you a little. Eric has one (it's combined with his fire alarm). It started going off on Sunday out of nowhere. Not having ever heard it before, he walked to it and saw that it read "Move to clean air." AGH! Two firetrucks later, it was determined he had enough carbon monoxide in there to likely cause him to not wake up if he'd gone to sleep that night. HOLY WHAT?! Apparently, his hot water heater needed to be replaced... Anyway, whoa. This is my PSA for carbon monoxide detectors.

Yeah, there was no rhyme or reason to any of that so thanks for reading the random thoughts in my little brain this evening. Happy middle of the week, peeps!

Cooking Lesson

This weekend, Eric and I went to a friend's bbq. (more pics coming tomorrowish). I was super excited to make spicy corn dip. Spicy corn dip=awesomesauce dip my friends always make for stuff and it's extremely easy and YUMMY! It's seriously the crack of dips, people. So, I obviously wanted to take it to Eric's friend's bbq and be the girl who brought the amazing dip. Duh.

After an interesting episode at the grocery store where an idiot employee tried to tell me hominy was the same thing as Mexican corn and I almost flipped sh*t b/c I was running incredibly late, I made it home (thanks to Jenny's calming advice as to where Mexican corn is located in that particular store). I had 30 minutes to make the dip, shower, and get ready/to Eric's house. (See, I said I was running late).

I immediately started frantically chopping things and combining ingredients.. I was rocking.and.rolling. like freaking M@rtha Stewart, people.

I made the dip in 10 minutes or so and rushed to the shower...when my hand started hurting.

You know I'm not exactly a chef if you've been reading this for awhile, but I get points for trying. And I'm not bad.. I just don't have a lot of cooking experience.

Well, here's what I learned this weekend:

When seeding these...

always wear these....
B/c if you don't, your hand will feel like this....
...for um, hours.

(Thanks to Eric for pouring milk over my hand in a bowl, taking an ice pack to the party for me, and not making fun of me...and also immediately complimenting me on my dip)

As an aside, the dip was a freaking major hit. Jalapeno hand=worth it.