So my office moved locations over the weekend so yesterday entailed figuring out my new route to and from work, trying to find the bathroom, the printer, the copy machine, unpacking and trying to climb out of boxes. It was tons of fun!

The best part was the lame assholes that found it necessary to come ask me about meetings, where things were located, etc while looking at me in a sea of crap with no computer hooked up and pretty much in the same boat as them. These are the people that I want to punch in the face. But alas, I smile, and in the most non condescending way try to explain to them that we are all in the same situation at the moment and that I know just about as much as they do...idiots.

On Saturday we saw the B52's. They're old now but damn, they still rock! I love them. We had a great time at the concert. There were lots and lots of men with wigs and dresses on in the crowd, which was fun. Hubby feels as though this is the first and last time he needs to see them live. Understandable. I guess it's a girl thing...it was just plain old fun to me!

Last night we took pooch to her basic training class. She did pretty well. She's making progress. She did her sits and her lay down's. She did her stays, kind of, and her stands. She came when called and she also acted like the crazy puppy that she is. I love that little bitch!

At the end of class, one of the weirdo trainers from the "advanced" class where the dogs are trained to be robots that don't react to anything unless given permission from their owners, decided to give us some advice...I'll set it up properly.

After class, some of the other pup's in our class wanted to have a little sniff of Lucy and do a little playing. I find nothing wrong with this. She's a puppy, and if the other owners are cool with it then it's all good with me. Well, we were reprimanded, told to stop playing and then weirdo trainer said to me, "if you want your dog to learn and to listen to you, you should not let her do that, she has to learn to listen to you and not want to play with other dogs more..." I turned to her, thanked her for her "advice" and walked away.

I appreciate this woman's love of training things, I suppose. I appreciate that she has some kind of expertise in this area, but...my dog is a 9 month old lab mix. She's nuts! She loves squirrels and birds and people and most especially other dogs of all sizes. She'll never be a "show dog", she'll never compete in agility courses or obedience demonstrations - unless of course it's to show what not to do. You know what I want her to do? I want her to stop jumping on people and to listen to me when I tell her to stay so that if a car is coming she won't get hit by it. Other than that, that trainer can go eff herself with a milk bone...whoops, did I say that? Lord, our pooch is gonna end up getting expelled from school. HA!

So, yesterday was GLORIOUS! Most of my team is out of town for some meetings so my boss emailed me late in the morning and told me that he was happy that I'm on board and to take the rest of the afternoon off if I could! I was so excited. That was the nicest email I think I've ever received!!

So, I left a couple of hours later, stopped at the hardware store to get the rest of the supplies I needed for my garden then headed home. I made some stakes for my tomato and pepper plants then I covered the entire "garden" with netting to keep the birds, squirrels and deer out of my goodies! As you can see from the picture, Lucy is guarding the plants here. Either that or she's trying to figure out how she can get in there to bury something!!

Anyway, I've planted yellow tomatoes, red tomatoes, sweet yellow peppers, habanero peppers, rosemary, parsley, chives, basil and mint. I hope some of this stuff grows! When I was a kid my parents always helped us grow vegetables and on top of the fact that home grown veggies and herbs always taste better, we always had so much pride in the fruits of our labor.

The garden is in our front yard, which I know is unconventional, but it's the only place that we get consistent sun throughout the day. The bushes that were once in that spot died and are gone so there was a big hole there, which looked weird. I"m hoping this doesn't look weird too. According to my MIL, you should NEVER have a garden in your front yard. But I say, eh, fuck her...Just kidding (kind of).

So, the rest of the afternoon the pooch and I sat out on the back deck and enjoyed an afternoon of leisure in the nice weather. I took some pictures of our little dog model (doesn't she look like she's posing in some of the shots) as we were hanging out. She's taught herself how to get on and off the hot tub top. Sometimes she just sits up there and surveys her property. It's very cute. Anyway, enjoy some more shots of our pooch enjoying a day with her mama!

www.flickr.com

So I got home yesterday evening to the pooch looking at me, guilty as sin, tail wagging and BOTH my favorite and most worn pairs of flip flops torn to shreds! I pretty much live in my flip flops when I'm at home and as soon as the weather permits, and it's appropriate, I wear my flops pretty much everywhere, except for when nicer shoes are called for, obviously...

who me?

Anyway, I wanted to ring her neck and I wanted to scream but I didn't. I opened the back door, shooed her out and got on the computer to order new flops. $80 later...

hello down there

Now, I don't spend a lot of money on flip flops normally, however, these flops are the most comfortable leather flops you'll ever wear. They're called "butter", and for good cause. They feel great. Plus, they last a long time, if your dog doesn't eat them, I'd say a year or two. To me it's the same as buying 5 - 10 pairs of the cheap flops that fall apart in a week. Oddly, as if to taunt me, that little bitch left one flop from each pair completely unscathed. Almost to say, you could wear these, but oops, no you can't!

little miss prancy pants

So, we went out for a walk in the rain. I think we were gone for about an hour or so. We came home and went to obedience class. It was exhausting again. I swear, I don't care how much I try to tire Lucy out, she is still full of energy when she wants to be. Our instructor is this little old woman and I swear I thought Lucy was going to knock her over during one of her violent jump up and kiss you moments!

deelish

We have this "system" that whoever leaves the house last makes sure that everything is picked up or at best anything edible to Lucy gets put away. Well, the hubby was the last to leave yesterday. It was by no means his fault that the flops were eaten but I think he felt a little guilty because when we got home the little sweety had a bag with three pairs of really nice, cute flip flops in it for me! He called my mom to find out what size shoes I wore and my sister to find out where to get cute shoes! He is too sweet for words...yeah I know DK - puke!

Anyway, I am taking his flops back only because I already ordered the others on-line, but I have a feeling this is just one of those lessons that we're going to have to learn over and over again. I'm sure it's not the last pair of flops that Lucy will enjoy in her lifetime!

It's not really raining anymore but it's still cloudy. The sun is supposed to come out tomorrow and I can't wait. I like the rain and all but too much of it is so depressing!

Friday was an amazing day! It was so warm and sunny. I was allowed to leave work early, I think I left close to 1pm, and worked the rest of the day at home. The pooch and I lounged in the sun all day long. That evening we made some great steaks on the grill and had a perfect spring dinner.

Saturday was another perfect day. I am very impressed with myself for how productive I was. I trimmed all of the bushes in front of our house. I removed a dead bush. I sprayed the weeds. I cut the grass. I raked the leaves. I swept the front and back porches. Pheewww...It all looked so nice.

Sometime in the early morning hours on Sunday it started raining. I woke up to the pooch barking at the thunder. Well, it's Monday at about 11:30am and it hasn't stopped raining yet!

Yesterday was so weird. It would rain violently, thunder, lightening, torrential down pours. Then it would stop and almost look like the sun was about to come out, just long enough for us to go to Home Depot to buy some plants, then it would start all over again. We got stuck in one of the storms. It was kind of humorous actually. We got home from HD and I was soaked from my ass to my feet, well, my pants anyway. It's not so bad when it's warm. If I was cold I would have been bitter.

Anyway, I've decided to try my hand at a little garden this summer. I'm going to attempt to grow tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers and some herbs. If I can keep the deer out I should be okay but we'll see. Once I plant everything I'll let you know how fast I kill it all.

Anyway, our basement looks a little like the River Walk in San Antonio right now but otherwise the rain is good. Yesterday was actually a lot of fun sitting in the house with all the windows open listening to the great thunder storms and the hard rain. I think everything is going to be so green once the rain stops. I'm hoping this is the last day of it because as much as it's needed and as good as it is for everything, it gets old after a couple of days.

I hope everyone is having a good Monday!

Okay, seriously? SERIOUSLY! WTF is wrong with these girls? I mean, I understand that having more money than god and being so famous that you constantly have to run and hide from paparazzi is tough on a gal but why? Why on earth do the Olson chickies dress like they're homeless?

I mean, who lies to her and tells her that she looks good before she walks out the door? Aren't all famous people supposed to have stylists? That thing on her head looks like the ring around a planet and she looks like she got into her much taller grandma's old clothes to play dress up. Can she walk in that frock? OY! I just don't get it. I guess it's not for me to get...




So, I played a little hooky yesterday and worked from my deck the rest of yesterday afternoon. It was beautiful out and the pooch and I enjoyed every minute of it. Even if I was sneezing my head off and my eyes looked like I was smoking pot all afternoon. The pollen around here is no joke this time of year...

I got to happy hour with rosy cheeks from all the sunshine and ready to get my drink on! Sadly, it didn't get ugly...maybe next time. But it was fun and it felt good to sip margaritas and gossip with the old gang.

It is just gorgeous out today. Not a cloud in the sky and I think it was close to 70 degrees before I even got to the office. I'm hoping there's a way I can sneak out of here early. It would be a crime to waste this beauty of a day under the fluorescents!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend. HAPPY FRIDAY!!!

I have on the cutest shoes today and I really wanted to post a picture of them but I'm thinking I may use them in my HNT anniversary post, so no can do...When OS completes this project look for the super cute shoes, those are mine!

It is spectacular outside today. When I left for work it was probably in the 60's and might go up to close to 80 degrees today. I can't wait to go home and play outside with the pooch at lunch. The horrible thing about the nice weather is that it makes me want to drink. Since I was a child I've always suffered from Spring Fever. It got me into a lot of trouble in school.

Now that I am a responsible adult I just want to sit outside and drink margaritas until my face falls off. Lucky for me I'm meeting my old work crew out for drinks tonight. I just hope it doesn't get ugly. I can see myself calling hubby to come get me. I am going to try my damnedest not to go overboard. Unfortunately, I've never quite understood the concept of having one or two drinks. I just don't have that switch in my head that says, okay, no more. My brain always seems to say, ohhh, just one more. Over and over again...

I'll let you all know what happens tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get lucky and won't be hung over! Happy Thursday Everyone.

I know a lot of people are going to disagree with this because I have friends that disagree with me on this one but I HATE Kohl's. That has got to be the worst store on the planet. I don't know what it is but I get a headache every time I step foot in the doors. Which, is not often. Every two years or so I decide, hey, let me check in Kohls, maybe they have something I want. Well, I should just tell myself, no, no they don't have anything I want or need.

As a matter of fact, every single time I have decided to try my hand at shopping there I end up having to go back to return/exchange everything I bought. This time was gonna be different...

I decided to go get a cheap new comforter since our spoiled little pooch keeps ruining our very expensive down filled comforters. The ad I saw over the weekend had them on sale for like $30 a pop or something ridiculous. I missed the sale but they were still pretty cheap so I got two. They also had kitchen/bath mats on sale for about $11 a piece, not bad. I bought two of those too, but not before searching high and low to find two that were even remotely the same dimensions. I saw the cutest bed sheets that were striped in bright, pretty colors so I picked that up. As I was heading toward the check out I saw some really cute dresses so I grabbed this awesome looking lemon yellow, hippy looking thing and another multi-colored halter dress. After spending over $200 in this stupid store I headed home. Maybe I don't hate this store as much as I think I do...

I opened the comforter. Score! I liked it, it fit, it didn't feel like sand paper, nothing to report.

I decided to try on the dresses. The yellow dress might as well have been made for a flat chested 8 year old (and no, it was not). My breasts were popping out like an overflowing tube of Pillsbury dough. And I know that's not hard for me but when you buy a dress in your size you assume it will be sewn in a way that would remotely fit your body. I don't have any real abnormal body dimensions. DAMMIT! Now I have to go back there...

I lay the bathroom mats out in the bathroom to see how I feel about them. I decide that I hate them. They look...industrial. Not homey, I hate the color green they are. They don't match. UUGHH Now I really have to go back...

I decide to open up the fun new sheet set. Nothing on the package indicates that it has been opened before. Everything seems in perfect order - folded up, cardboard in between each layer, folded properly to fit in the tight plastic bag. It only has ONE PILLOW CASE!!!! I searched everywhere. Inside the fitted sheet folds. Under the bed. In the bag. No pillowcase, and yes, it was supposed to come with two. Motherfffffff.

I go back to the store to return all of this shit which was another nightmare in itself but I won't bore you with anymore of my crap.

Bottom line. Kohl's sucks. I hate that store and I hope I remember this when I get the hankerin to go back there in a year or two...I should just stick with Target when I need my cheap shit fix. At least I know I like that store and their goods...

Ahhh complaining feels good. It's beautiful outside. I'm going home to play with my pooch!!

For the first time in I don't know how long I got D-R-U-N-K on Friday night. One of the girls we were with fell down and I puked!!! I don't know the last time that's happened...Saturday was a day for hangovers and fried chicken. Lovely!

The hubby and I did actually become quite productive as Saturday went on so I don't feel so bad. We ended up going to the Amish Market in our area and picking up some fabulous looking steaks. We came home and made a fabulous spring dinner. The weather was amazing, and of course, too good to be true. We had our rib eye's and artichokes on the grill, blue cheese and shallot mashed potatoes, red and yellow tomato, avocado and mozzarella salad and for desert I made a pecan - bourbon bunt cake. It was a feast fit for a king and we ate like it was our last meal. It's fun to do sometimes I suppose.

Sunday was a rude awakening as it was significantly colder than it had been the day before. At least we got a Saturday of warmth. I woke up with a sore throat and a pounding head and it's even worse today. I don't understand how I can go the whole winter without getting sick and then as soon as spring begins I get a "cold". What the hell is that about? I am considering going home early and crashing because I don't think I can last a whole day with these fluorescent lights blaring down on me...

I hope everyone is having a lovely Monday!

howdy

Okay, this has been the week from hell! I'll try to start from the beginning and not bore everyone to death!

SO, we had a great time at the beach. The pooch was, well...an animal! She was loving jumping in the water and playing in the sand. We had so much fun with her and it was just a nice long weekend.




Every now and then you get a little reminder that you're in the south and the, errr, mentality there. Please enjoy the most red neck truck I have ever seen, or in this case, almost not seen:

Yes, that is a camo truck. I'm assuming it was a home made type thing. I wish I could have taken pictures of every person that walked by it with their mouths wide open and breaking their necks to check it out. Now that is a statement. I guess this dude sits in his truck and kills things that can't see him...? Honestly, I don't know, nor did I stick around to find out.

SO...I got back to work on Tuesday and had a ton of work to do. I literally have not been on the internet other than work stuff all week. I mean, I was under the impression that a little work ferry just comes and does all your shit while you're on vacation. Who knew things just build up and you have to deal with them yourself. Man they do things the hard way around here!

I was just getting on track yesterday when I experience what I can only describe as one of the worst days of my life. I'll try to make the story as compressed as possible.

So, Wednesday night my family and some friends that were in from out of town all met out for dinner. Afterward my 18 year old sister and her boyfriend came by the casa to pick up a television that we were giving away to the boy. I'd say it was close to 10pm. Okay, normal enough right?

Thursday morning around 8am or so my mom calls me to ask if my sister ever came over last night and if she happens to still be at my house....Hmmmm...not good. So, we're all kind of pissed. She has my mom's car and was supposed to come home last night so now mom has to take public transportation to work and that's just not fair. At this point we are chalking this up to an irresponsible teenage thing.

At 9am there is still no word but I'm thinking that she's still sleeping, perhaps at the boyfriends house, maybe they went to a party and, oohhh, ahhh, drank too much and passed out? Who knows, it's early. I am also in constant communication with my 24 year old sister at this point.

At 10:30am I'm starting to get nervous. Needless to say, not much work was getting done. Sister 24 and I are calling the boyfriend, the little sister, sending text messages, calling other friends, sister 24's bf drives by sister 18's bf's house - no sign of mom's car and no answer at the door ,we are now texting sister 16 who is in school to see if she knows anything.

At 10:45am sister 24 calls sister 18's job - she's not there but was supposed to be. They are alarmed that we haven't heard from her and neither have they. This is not like her, she's reliable and is ALWAYS at work on time and when she's supposed to be.

At 11am I'm sick to my stomach. I'm avoiding calling my parents to tell them that we have absolutely no answers. Sister 24 and I have divided the numbers for every hospital in the area and are calling them to see if she's at any of them. I've called the local police and they have no information.

At 12pm hubby is trying to talk some sense into me and telling me that if anything happened to her the police would have come to the house to let us know...it's not really helping me at this point but I appreciate his attempts to calm me down...I know he's getting worried now too.

Every possible scenario is going through our heads. They were carjacked, something happened to them at a party or out somewhere and someone either took advantage of them or took their lives, I won't even go into all of the crazy things that are going through our heads...

The thing is, my sisters and I are very close. Our whole family is close really. None of us really has any fear of calling our parents if we need help or whatever the case is and beyond that, if any one of us didn't want to or couldn't call our parents, there is NOTHING in the world that would stop us from calling one another. That's what we do. We're sisters...Now I'm scared. Something is really wrong. I am beside myself. I have a mini meltdown at work and have to tell my boss at this point what's going on because I am just at a loss. I have no idea what to do now.

At 12:45pm sister 24 is on her way to pick mom up from work and they are going to drive around looking for her. At this point dad has gone by the bf's house once and sister 24's bf has gone by the house twice. I decide to leave work and go by his house now too.

I get to the parking garage and I get a phone call from a number that I don't recognize. It's sister 18 and she's been IN JAIL ALL NIGHT!!!!!

I am relieved. I want to throw up. I want to cry. I just need to release the tension that's been in the pit of my stomach all day! The car has been impounded and I'm on my way to go pick her up. I'm also the first person she called so I tell her to hang up and call mom IMMEDIATELY to stop her worrying. I call hubby, he calls dad, I'm on the road to the big house.

It was the best, worst case scenario that we could have asked for. She was safe and what went down was not her fault. She was basically in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Without going into too much detail I will just say that she was somewhere with friends that ended up getting raided (I know! It sounds like something out of a movie) - believe me, this is not something we see here every day. My sister just happened to be there so she went down with the ship, and so did our mom's car! All of this happened about 20 minutes after my sister left my house. God I wish I would have made her stay and hang out for a little while. Oh well, she's alive and I am thankful for that. And honestly, I don't think she'll get in any trouble in this situation but I've never been in this type of trouble, or to jail for that matter, so I don't know.

My sister is a criminal! he he. I'm glad we can laugh about this now. Well, we will also never let her live this down which is always fun to have on a sister! I hope no one ever has to go through that type of situation. It was literally the most draining, scary day. I could have gone to bed at 4pm yesterday. Go hug your peeps and tell them how much you love them!

AND, thank GOD it's Friday. Have a great weekend everyone!!

So, sadly, a deranged father decided to take his 3 children to a hotel in Baltimore this past Sunday and murdered them all. Then he made an ill attempt at his own life, coward! This family also happened to live in my neighborhood. Apparently he and his wife were going through a messy divorce/custody battle and his solution was to kill all of their kids.

I just don't get it. How on earth could you murder your own children? How mentally fucked up do you have to be to physically harm the people that you created? I couldn't hurt my dog let alone the product of what once must have been a loving union. Can you imagine wanting to hurt your ex so bad that you would take the lives of all of your kids? I just don't understand why you would want to live after all of this. I am no proponent of suicide (or murder for that matter) but why didn't he just end his own life? And how, as a mother, could you ever recover from this? I just can't imagine healing no matter how much love and support I had. I am just at a loss with this. I wish I could stop thinking about it but this is a tough one. It just weighs on you.

Our neighborhood is trying to come up with something to do to honor these poor little souls. I think the consensus is that we are going to start a collection for a new piece of playground equipment and 3 trees planted in honor of these children in the neighborhood park. I think this sounds like a really nice tribute. This whole thing really just makes me sick to my stomach.

On a much lighter note, today is my Friday, thank God. Hubby, Pooch and I will be heading down the road early tomorrow morning to the beach. I am so looking forward to it. This has been a really frustrating week at work and I'm ready for it to be over. I have also come to the conclusion that I did not take nearly enough time off in between jobs. I should have taken a little more time. I admit the double pay checks were lovely but I think taking a little bit more time for me would have been nice. Now I just come home every day feeling like there are just not enough hours in the day...I'm praying that this weekend rejuvenates me...I need to come back refreshed and in a better mood.

Hug the one's you love today and I hope you all have a great weekend! XO

my right leg is on fire.

This morning I shaved my legs and apparently some of my goose bumps were not quite gone. I'll give you a minute to imagine what that feels like....If you guessed "Glorious", you're right!

Last night was our first dog obedience class sans dogs. I'm excited for this class. The teacher seems really great and I think our little Lucy is finally going to learn some manners! It was also nice to hear about some other pups, and even older dogs, that seem to have similar and even worse puppy behaviors than our pooch. Yayyy for bad dogs! The only bad thing is, unlike the puppy classes that we took Nola to, the dogs are not allowed to play at the beginning of class. This is going to kill Lucy. I'm seriously going to have to take her on a long walk before each class to wear her hyper ass out!

I have nothing exciting to talk about or report. It's just another boring, rainy day...I hope everyone else is having a much more interesting day than mine!