holly hawkes

a bit of a downer and for that, i'm sorry . . .

2011-07-18T21:03:00.004-05:00

been feeling kinda blah today. i'm not sure why. perhaps it's a combination of things, but needless to say, today hasn't been a great day. it hasn't been a complete bust . . . just feeling a little down, i guess.

i know one reason is because of school. i have been doing well and working hard. so far, i have As. but i did something so incredibly dumb the other day that it could perhaps affect me finishing school and getting my associate's in computer science. and that would completely suck cuz i have no PLAN B. matter of fact, this IS my plan B. so if this fails, then what? i don't know. right now, i am just waiting on a resolution and then i will be able to feel okay with everything. either way. i did this to myself, so if it goes badly, i will suffer the consequences. if it goes in my favor, i will be smarter in the future.

another thing that has been really bothering me is that i am really worried about someone i hold near and dear to my heart. she has been going through a lot of changes, and honestly, i'm afraid she's not okay. and i don't mean because of the physical changes. i mean because of what's going on inside her head. i always thought she and i were really close, but lately, she seems . . . vacant. like nothing matters to her anymore. and that scares me. i worry for her mental health and i worry for her family. it isn't my life, so i cannot live it for her. and i will never judge her or think anything bad of her. i will just worry in silence and hope that she knows i love her more than my life. i would do anything to take her pain away. i hope that one day she can be strong enough to seek out help and get herself mentally situated. she is a strong person and deserves the best that life has to offer her. i know she doesn't believe that, though. i hope that one day she can see herself as i see her : beautiful, smart, funny, strong, vivacious, caring and thoughtful. right now, i'm just not even sure she sees herself. it makes me so sad for her. i hope one day she can find strength and put her demons to rest. her husband deserves it. her kids deserve it. but most of all, she deserves it.

i have to go back to work tomorrow, too. i have had a few days off; the beau and i took our kiddos, my nephew and my niece to dallas for the weekend. they had a good time. we went to LegoLand, hurricane harbor and medieval times. we took them bowling and they got to eat out a lot. i know they enjoyed it. it makes me happy to think that we could do that for them. especially my niece. she doesn't live around all her cousins, so i know it was a real treat for her to spend an entire weekend with three of them. and i know she looks up to my girls, so that makes me proud. even though lynese and lynae are my "stepchildren," i don't think of them that way. i love them as my own. i hurt when they hurt, i am happy when they are. everything i do now takes them into consideration. i tell them i love them, but i hope that they know i really do. and i hope that one day, they will love me, too.

anyway, it's late and time for me to get kids into bed. work comes early. i have strayed from going to the gym, but the beau and i are supposed to start back together tomorrow. mom is going to watch the kids and we will go to a spin class tomorrow night. i am actually looking forward to it. i know that if i can just get going again, i will build a routine and get back to a healthier style of life. i want that for myself, for my beau, for the kids. we will see how tomorrow goes.

spin class . . .

2011-06-15T13:30:00.001-05:00

kicked my booty last night. i can barely walk today. but i am still going to yoga tonight! what are you doing to be more healthy?

"rock"ing and rolling . . .

2011-06-14T11:06:00.004-05:00

and so i blog again about being fat, and the travails that come along with it. if you don't care to read about my fatty-tattiness or about what i am doing to become a healthy, stealthy, wealthy (dang -- is that all that rhymes with healthy?) girl, click that white X in the red box in the corner and have an amazingly wonderful day. otherwise, read on and discover the new adventures of

**HP and girl fitness**

seriously, that is a nickname that one of my co-workers gave to myself and my roommate (another quick fact for the confused : my roommate and i work together). how disheartening it was to just be called "HP." i mean, i guess it was better than being called "beached whale" but still . . . she gets "girl fitness" and i get initials. not to say she doesn't deserve it, cuz she works hard for her body ("so hard for her body! she works hard for her body so you better treat her right!" sorry -- i had a donna summer moment). it's just that man -- i used to *be* girl fitness. now i am . . .

**girl fatness**

but in all seriousness, i do not like being girl fatness. my buddy's dad just had a massive heart attack the other day and the doctor said it correlated directly to his sedentary lifestyle. he rarely exercises and is overweight. and now he has stints in his heart. i do not want to be that person. i do not want to leave behind my glorious blog audience (well and my family/friends, etc.) because i was lazy. i want to live life! and so one day, i want my roommate and myself to be called

**girl fitnii**

(in case you didn't know, "fitnii" is the plural form of "fitness," like "fungi" or "cacti.") and i have begun my journey to get there again. yesterday, i started yoga. yes, i know that that is hardly "real exercise" but i did work up a sweat and my heartrate was crazy! and today i am really sore. i have been southbeachin' it up, too . . . been watching my carb intake and eating a lot of chicken. granted, today is really only my second official day, but i have been good. the only thing i really hate about southbeach is that the weight loss is accompanied by headaches the first two weeks of doing it. they say it's cuz your body has to get used to the limited number of carbs and blahblahblah. i just hope that this 800mg ibuprofen kicks in really soon. like really soon. i eat so much salad that i stay in the bathroom (and i don't mean weighing myself). either way, i am doing okay.

**and because i am awesome**

i am going to post some pictures of me from the last time i was in shape. call it motivation (and you can also call my booty nice cuz believe me, i know it once was!) for the future. i am heading to el paso next week for work, but since the beau is there for work, too, i am going to have him tape me. today, i will give you my starting weight. i can't believe that i am going to actually post it. no one is allowed to laugh or call me "two ton tilly." so officially, my starting weight is . . .

**202.8 lbs**

i know what you are thinking. how does a body as gorgeous and svelte as mine weigh that much (i kid, i kid)? but really . . . who wants to say they are over 200 lbs? scratch that -- what WOMAN wants to say they are over 200 lbs? i know i hate saying it. i would rather gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon than to have to say i am 100 lbs times 2. it is mortifying . . . even worse was this weekend when i couldn't fit into anything and my husband's jeans were too tight. talk about a reality check.

**and that is when the switch in my brain turned on**

and so far, that switch has stayed on. even after almost killing myself at yoga last night, i am still determined to do well. i am supposed to go to spin class tonight, but i'm not sure i'm in shape enough to do that yet. i have to do something, though. i wanna get back to looking like this :

so, i invite all you good people of my blog to join the fight against fat. change your diet a little bit, take the stairs instead of the elevator -- heck, even do zumba without me making fun of you. but do something. don't let this life pass you by because you are just too lazy. do something good for yourself. in turn,

**you might just save your own life**

good will hunting?

2011-05-31T14:26:00.003-05:00

last week, after hearing about the tornadoes up north and in the mideast, my little brother posted on facebook that he would love to go help out with the disaster relief effort. after a couple of phone calls, i decided i was down for going and we planned a huge trip to go out and aid the folks of el reno and piedmont, oklahoma. needless to say, the trip didn't happen. i don't want to go into detail because i am still a little bit heartbroken that we didn't get to go, but i must say :

*it completely renewed my faith in the inherent goodness of people*

on another note, since this is my blog, i am allowed to write on here WHATEVER it is that i want. and if you don't like it, you do not have to read it. you can simply click that little red X in the corner and pretend that i don't exist. not entirely sure anyone reads this anyhow, but since it is mine, i don't have to apologize for what i will write, either. this blog is not directed at anyone specifically, but everyone generally. if you do feel like this is directed at yourself, then go look in a mirror and perhaps heed the advice offered this time.

alright, so here it goes. i am SOOOOOO tired of people complaining about other people because they believe differently or think differently or act differently or dress differently . . . or anything differently. THIS IS AMERICA, folks! wake up! and if you wanna play religion, then it is called FREE AGENCY. people are allowed to do what they want, when they want, how they want and if it isn't hurting you, then quit complaining about it to me. sometimes i think the only reason i am around is so people can call me and complain to me about what dick or jane did or didn't do or will do or said they would do. cuz honestly, I DON'T CARE.

and it's not that i truly don't care . . . it's just that i have enough going on in my life that i can't worry about someone else's salvation or someone else's actions. what dick or jane do has no direct bearing on me or my happiness. what i am concerned about is the welfare of my (step)children, and how their mamas do their best to keep the kids away from their daddy. and how much his heart hurts cuz he doesn't get to see them, and how much my wallet hurts cuz of child support.

and don't get me wrong, i know that i do my fair share of complaining, but i can also say with great conviction that it's never over someone's physical appearance or what someone said on their facebook status. sometimes, when i get phone calls, i want to ask a pre-screening questionaire to the caller:

a) does this conversation have anything to do with me?
b) are you even going to ask me how my day has been going?
3) do you want a miniature pinscher?

okay, so really -- i don't always wanna ask that last question. only when inspektor or lucky are getting on my nerves. but the first two are always relevant.

however, being the good friend that i am, i rarely say anything to anyone about this. i just let them complain, offer my advice that is often -- if not always -- ignored and take a day off my life for having listened to the negativity. and maybe that is what all of this boils down to . . . negativity.

folks, believe it or not -- i try to be a positive person. i try to uplift and help whenever i can. some days, i admit, i am selfish, but most days are spent looking after the welfare of others. and i honestly don't mind. it's who i am. i enjoy it. but i think everyone reaches a breaking point. and really, i reached that breaking point a few days ago. instead of focusing on the negative in someone, try focusing on the good things they do. focus on their heart. to me, that is the most important thing we can not only do for ourselves, but for others.

**try to see the inherent good in others**

and if you just can't bring yourself to do that today, if everything has you in a crappy mood, if everyone is less than perfect compared to yourself, then give me a call or shoot me a text. i will be there to listen. and offer unwanted advice. but please do me one favor when you call to complain and whatnot:

*ask me how my day is first.*

one more about dogs . . .

2011-05-23T07:51:00.013-05:00

*and so the saga of the dogs continues . . . *

first of all, we found brutus' real home. when we got brutus off of craigslist, the lady said that they had done all they could to find his owners. i took his to mean that they checked to see if he was chipped. apparently that isn't part of "all we could do to find his owners." here's how it all went down.

i arranged for a lady and her two kids to meet brutus on saturday. turns out they didn't want him, so i asked my dad to take brutus up to the second chance shelter (which is a no kill shelter) to see what we should do with him. it's not that i thought he was a bad dog or anything; he just wasn't a good fit for our house. he was whiny and barky and a little aggressive. i felt horrible about taking him to the shelter (which is why my dad took him) -- and i even cried after he took him. i just imagined him going to some horrible home where they abused him and starved him to death (i don't know why i always think about worst case scenarios).

*turns out, brutus was chipped.*

the lady working at the shelter wouldn't give dad the owner's number, but she did inform daddy that brut's real name is phat phat, and that he is an english toy terrier. yes, folks . . . you read that right. phat phat. anyhow, daddy brought him home and i was getting ready to take him up to the animal control shelter (because second chance said that would be our best bet cuz they would get him home) when i got a call. the lady on the other end was phat phat's owner. she told me she had been looking for him and that he got out of a friend's backyard when she was in new jersey for a funeral. we met up at big lots in killeen and she got her dog back. everyone won in the end.

*fast forward a day to sunday . . . *

the roommate, nephew and i went to meet up with a lady who had the one-eyed dog i blogged about last time. we met at a place in salado called pace park, which turned out to be an awesome place (we're thinking of taking the kids there for memorial day weekend). here are some pictures of it :

**view to the right**

**view to the left**

**col and inspektor hanging out in the creek**

anyhow, the lady who we were getting the dog from -- who from now on i will refer to as lucky -- showed up about 15 minutes after we did and we chatted quite a bit about lucky. she wanted to hang out for a bit to make sure lucky got along with oma and inspektor. and he did. and he was so adorable! he has the softest coat and is quite handsome (although i must admit, inspektor is the most handsome). he was friendly and came up to us after he sniffed us and got to know us. here is a pic of him that i snapped by the creek:

**don ciclope luciano d'occhio**

we decided that we would take him home with the understanding that if he wasn't a good fit with us or the dogs, we would be able to return him and they would find another home for him. i don't think we'll have any issues with him, but it is really too early to say that for sure.

we got him home and let him walk around the house, to get a feel for his new surroundings. i am glad this one is fixed, but that sure didn't stop him from humping the bed! it was quite hilarious and colby couldn't stop laughing whenever lucky pretended to "take care of business" . . . but he was wearing a "belly band," so there were no accidents. here are a couple of pics i got of lucky with the dogs. i couldn't seem to get them all together in one and it was hard to keep them still long enough to even get these. these are the two best ones :

**oma and lucky**

**inspektor and lucky**

anyhow, our first night was a success. he had a bit of trouble figuring out where he was supposed to sleep and kept trying to jump into my bed. i would put him firmly into his and say "bed." by the end of all of this, he got the hang of it. when i would say bed, he'd run and jump in his. i just hope that he continues to be as good as he was yesterday.

*if so, we might have to keep him!*

dogs in diapers . . .

2011-05-19T10:08:00.007-05:00

as the title suggests, this post is about dogs in diapers. to start off, the reason the dogs were in diapers is because oma is in heat. and because i didn't want her "leaving a trail" behind her wherever she went (you know what i mean), i decided to get her a diaper. she looks so cute in it, as you can see :

well the diaper i bought was a two for one deal, one pink and one purple. the roommate came home last night and we got the bright idea to put inspektor and brutus in the purple one. it was hilarious.

here is inspektor :

at first, he was a little annoyed by it. he wasn't sure what to do with it on and kinda ran around for a few second, nipping at it. but then, once he figured out he wasn't going to be able to get it off, he jumped up on the couch and laid down by oma, who was wearing hers. it was quite adorable.

and then there was brutus :

he looks like a bodybuildin' beast in this pic, doesn't he?!? it was so funny. first off, once we got the diaper on him, he just stood there, frozen. i kept calling his name and i could tell he wanted to move, but wasn't quite sure how to. and then when he did walk, it was the most awkward thing ever! he walked about 3 steps and decided that was enough and he was ready to get rid of the diaper.

all of the sudden, we had brutus the german gymnast in our living room! he was throwing himself all over the floor, doing flips and turns. everything he could think of to get this diaper off of him. we were seriously crying it was so funny. after about two minutes of him doing this, i got him calmed down enough to take the diaper off of him and i could tell he was still mad. so how did i solve this?

i took oma's diaper off and put she and brutus outside for some alone time. that seemed to have worked. when he came back inside, he was happy as a clam (and the only time i will ever advocate brutus humping oma).

doggy day care . . .

2011-05-18T13:21:00.008-05:00

so we started off with one dog. his name is inspektor phinneas von owens, III. by now, all of my loyal blog readers should know this.

**inspektor phinneas von owens, III**

practically overnight, we added two additional dogs to the family : a miniature dachshund and a rat terrier.

**frau olga von hundsen**

this is oma. okay, really her name is frau olga von hundsen. but she goes by oma. she is the sweetest little miniature dachshund a person could want. she is lovable and cuddley and calm. we "rescued" her from a friend who found her dropped off in the country. i didn't know i was actually looking another dog until i got her. originally, the friend dropped the dog off at my parents' house, cuz they were taking her up to my sister's house to keep. when i saw her at their house, i took her home to have her play with inspektor. she didn't play much, but i loved her instantly. and so i decided to kidnap her and claim her as my own. we just got her vaccinated again and she will be spayed next month. she is so much fun to have around.

i really didn't think she'd make it this long. when we first got her, she was really sick and halfway dead. i thought she might live a week or two, at most. she puked every single time we fed her and she was so weak that she couldn't even walk from her bed to the backyard. i had to literally carry her and put her on the grass so she could go to the bathroom. it was sad. one day, the beau and i went out to petco to get something -- i can't remember what we actually went for -- and i talked to a dog trainer out there. when i told him about oma, he told me that it sounded like she had a food allergy and he recommended we immediately change her dogfood. we picked up some wet food -- we weren't sure her stomach could handle dry -- called natural balance LID (limited ingredients diet). we also gave her 1/2-tsp of pepto, 3x daily, as recommended by a vet friend of mine. it took her a bit of time, but after about a week or two of eating the new food, she was as good as new! i bet the reason she was abandoned was because she was always throwing up. if only they knew!

i took her to the vet today to get her vaccinated. they recommended we just get her the distemper/parvo, rabies and one other shot. only cost me $40. the other reason i took her was because i thought she might be pregnant. turns out, she's between 9-10 years old, and that is too old for her to have any pups. the vet told me that she is going through a "false pregnancy," so she is displaying all the symptoms of pregnancy, but not really going to give birth to any puppies. i am taking her back in one month to have her spayed (she has to complete her heat cycle and be done with it for approximately 2 weeks before they can spay her). the doc said that on the off chance she is pregnant, they will terminate her pregnancy during the surgery. if they don't, oma will prolly die trying to give birth. all in all, she is a very sweet dog.

and then we have the rat terrier . . .

**baron brutus von bergenstein**

this is brutus . . . full name is baron brutus von bergenstein. we rescued him, too. found an ad on craigslist and decided to have him meet inspektor. they seemed to like each other and neither one barked when meeting the other. we took him home and he has been with us for about a month now. and sadly, i do not like him. it's not that i don't, i guess. it's just that he is a constant barker/whiner. it drives me absolutely crazy! he is always whining about something. it's gotten even worse since oma is in heat and he isn't fixed. they have been humping everywhere. see?

and i hate it! and i hardly get any sleep at night because brutus is on oma all night long. they wake me up and i always catch them before they start doing it, but it is seriously driving me crazy. and it's just not the humping. really, he isn't a good fit for us. i listed him on craigslist a couple of days ago and so far, i have only had one text about him. i am supposed to meet up with the lady on saturday. let's hope she still wants him. i'd hate to have to take him to an animal shelter, but that may end up happening. we will see.

but because we are giving up brut, we are on the hunt for another dog. the beau has decided he wants to stick with either another min-pin or another mini dachshund. they both have the best temperaments. i went onto craigslist-killeen and looked for both, but couldn't find any that i really liked. i decided to look on craigslist-austin to see if there was anything there, and i found one. this is him.

yes, folks . . . he has one eye. i don't know why i think he is so cute, but he is! i think it's cuz he reminds me of inspektor. i emailed the owner and asked about him and found out that he lost his eye to an internal infection. he is 3 1/2 years old and fixed, as well as up-to-date on all his shots. his name is zephyr, but you know i can't keep that name. we decided that he will be italian this time, instead of german. we already have a name picked out : don ciclope luciano d'occhio. in italian, ciclope means cyclops and d'occhio means eye. and since the beau wants to call him "lucky," we went with luciano as the middle name. i think it fits him perfectly!

anyhow, we are meeting with lucky and his owners on sunday in salado. i really hope that inspektor and lucky get along. i will keep you posted and if so, i will take more pics of our newest family member soon!

not a lot to talk about . . .

2011-05-05T08:47:00.002-05:00

well it's been a month since i last blogged . . . i guess it's a little better than i had previously done, cuz it was like a year between before. i guess that sometimes i just get so caught up in facebook that i don't remember to blog. not that i really have anything to talk about. my life is still boring and pretty monotonous. but i am happy to report:

*i start back to school in four days*

i am a little nervous, but a little less than i would be if i hadn't helped the beau through this last semester. helping him gave me the itch to finish. i took a trip down to a&m in college station last week to find out what i needed to do to finish up my bachelor's of arts-english (poetry). all in all, i have about 19 credits left til i graduate. i will take most of the classes at the local college here, but 6 credits have to be taken through texas a&m in college station. i am looking to knock out most of the credits between now and next spring, and finish up by driving down to college station twice a week (at night) to take my 6 credits, if they offer night classes. otherwise, i'm not sure how it will work out. 3 of the credits can be taken online, but the other class isn't offered online. so we will see.

i'm also going to the local college to pursue an AA-computer science. i am actually really excited. the beau is going for the same thing. i am fortunate that the classes i am taking this summer are the classes he just finished up. i will take 15 hours during the summer 1 session and hopefully 15 more during summer 2. that will all depend on work, of course.

*speaking of work*

i will be in el paso for the second half of this year. i have to take a few trips out there before my long deployment (15 august-12 december). the beau leaves 9 may and returns 9 july from el paso, too, but for a different test than i am. i am sad that he will be gone, but him going will help us reach our goal of getting out of debt completely in two years. i am looking forward to reaching that goal, but wish he and i didn't have to be apart. we have done it before, so i know it can be done again. plus, having my sister and her family in el paso will help a lot. i am glad she decided to stay there for paul's deployment instead of going to killeen since the beau and i will both be there at some point between may-december (hilary -- this means you *have* to cook sunday night dinners now so that the beau can get a good meal every once in awhile).

what else? our garden is growing! i am so glad we decided to plant it. there was, at one point, a time when we thought it wasn't going to make it. but we have eaten a lot of the lettuce and we have TONS of squash and zucchini growing. our bell peppers are still struggling to grow, but we have tomatoes and jalapenos that will be ready to harvest soon. our watermelon plants are even doing well. i am pretty happy and satisfied with the growth and that we have managed to not kill off everything! i will post some pics of it later, i suppose.

and i gues that's about it. not much to report.

meet charlotte . . .

2011-04-08T10:48:00.002-05:00

this is the new love of my life. of course i bought her like a week before the government shutdown (which means i may be out of a job for a week or two). hindsight is 20/20.

blah

2011-04-05T13:48:00.003-05:00

today has been a blah day. it started off in a blur and now i just feel sad. i found out last night that a friend's sister passed away. this friend and i haven't been close in quite some time, but she and i were *reallyclose* growing up. i have fond memories of both my friend and her sister.

my friend posted some pictures of her (deceased) sister on her facebook page. looking through them made me feel sad for her loss. i can remember many times growing up tagging along with her sister to do things. it just made my heart hurt for my friend and her family.

you had me at "mint chocolate chip"

2011-03-30T19:34:00.002-05:00

so a couple of weeks ago, i had this dream about some deliciously gooey, insanely sugary mint chocolate chip cookies. in the dream, my oldest sister (heidi), made them. i woke up and had a craving for these cookies, which is unusual cuz i rarely eat sweets. some people have sweet tooths . . .

*i have a salt tooth*

anyway, i mentioned it to my sister, and to my delight, she went and bought the ingredients and made up a recipe and made the most amazingly good mint chocolate chip cookies and sent them to me in the mail. as soon as i got the box, i sampled one and had to immediately share one with my roommate. we reveled in their softness, in their gooey-ness, in their deliciosity. never had a cookie been so good.

*it was seriously explosions of heaven in my mouth*

anyhow, i shared some with my family and then decided to share some with my co-workers. they loved them and started requesting that she make different flavored cookies, some with sugar, some with splenda (for my co-worker who is diabetic). i pitched the idea to them about paying for cookies, and each one agreed that they would definitely pay. and so, the idea was born . . . my sister, much to my insistence, would begin her own cookie company.

*why hadn't we done this sooner?*

we went through a long list of names that we could call her business . . . sugar britches, heidi's, bites & delights, miller's morsels and finally settled on baker's dozen. yes, it is kind of generic, but it's something people will remember. we are shooting for simple, yet delicious. heidi played around and came up with our logo -- very simple, yet effective. i have nominated myself to be the COO (Chief Operations Officer) and heidi as the CEO (chief executive officer). we are hiring out for an accountant. there are a lot of aspects about starting business i don't know about, but i'm pretty clear on how to get most of it going.

*by the way, good people, we are looking for investors*

anyhow, we're starting off small. she will do 10 flavors of cookies. we haven't gotten into details about what those flavors are, but she will also look into making "diabetic friendly" cookies. a lot of details to work out. i am just excited to get it going. and i'm excited for her. i know heidi will do great with this business. it combines two of her (and two of my) favorite things:

*food and money*

and really . . . who doesn't like that combination?

more garden stuff . . .

2011-03-27T17:38:00.006-05:00

not a lot to write about. we finished up the garden today. more pics below.

the planters

all planted

the watermelon patch

jalapenos

an impromptu home improvement project

2011-03-26T21:28:00.004-05:00

so my roommate (not to be confused with the beau) always comes up with these hair-brained ideas and

*i always agree they are actually good ideas.*

on friday, we went to kohl's to find a dress for myself. didn't find anything, and since kohl's is next to lowe's, i asked her if we could run in and look to see if the BBQ grill the beau wants was still on sale. we ran in and somehow, in 5 minutes of looking for the grill, she convinced me that building a planter would be a good idea. and before i knew it, i was on the phone, asking my dad if he had used all the stone from my sister's house (she has a HUGE pile of white rock in her backyard she is getting rid of).

*turns out, there was plenty.*

in our heads, moving rocks -- and these rocks ain't little -- was going to be easy peasy and take like 5 minutes. insert reality and suddenly, we realized we were going to move about 400 pounds of rock from my sister's backyard to the roommate's truck, and into a wheelbarrow and then to the backyard, where we would unload them onto the ground until we could figure out where we were going to put everything. it started off easy enough, until the second minute of moving rock.

*two hours later, we had the rock moved to the backyard*

i was entirely sure i was going to pass out at more than one point. the next few hours were spent moving rock, tilling ground that prolly had no business being tilled, moving more rock and watering. we bought dirt and then bought more dirt. we also got fruit & vegetable mix, as well as coconut coir. did some more watering and i think the big planter will be ready for planting tomorrow.

while building this big planter, our old german neighbor, sue, came outside and talked to us about our garden. she is very knowledgeable about gardening; when we informed her we were growing watermelon in the big planter, she told us that the watermelon would overtake all the other plants and that the watermelon patch should be separate. what did my roommate hear?

*let's build another planter . . . which we did.*

there was a lot of wheelbarrowing and hauling and digging and weeding . . . but i am so proud of what we accomplished in two days. we will plant tomorrow and see how it goes. we are both new at this, so i hope our first attempt at gardening is successful. below are some pictures of our project thus far!

so many things, so much time . . .

2011-03-22T13:28:00.007-05:00

so i got the notion to check out my blog this morning and realized

*i haven't actually posted anything on here since august.*

matter of fact, i'm not even entirely sure i have a "blog audience" anymore. oh well . . . i feel like writing this morning, so i will write and if someone reads it, i guess it's a bonus (for them, of course).

so much has happened since last august. let's see . . . i left and went TDY to california for a few months; added a new nephew (thanks to brett and cindy) and a niece to the mix (thanks to scott and val); got a new truck (okay, it was used but it's new to me) and oh yeah -- i got married. that is true and correct, my good people. the "anti-married" is now "the married." i'll share my wedding story here, even though i am sure if you are reading this, you already know the circumstances surrounding it.

i met this guy i kinda liked. that slowly turned to love and i decided that i liked him enough to introduce him the parents. they met him and fell more in love with him than i did (just ask my mom . . . i don't believe she has ever said "no" to any of his requests). they bugged us about marrying, but timing wasn't right for me. i was in no rush and neither was he. we just were. and then i went TDY to fort irwin (for those of you who don't know, that's in california, near LA/san diego, etc.). and one day, i got the notion that he and i should run off to vegas and elope. a little for love, a little for the tax break. mainly for the announcing it on facebook (i kid, i kid).

*so i asked, and he said yes.*

he flew out to visit and i took 5 days vacay and we headed out to that great city of sin in the desert, otherwise known as las vegas. we checked into the trump hotel and they upgraded us to a suite since it was to be our honeymoon. we headed out onto the strip and quickly realized, to our dismay and horror:

*we aren't vegas people*

he dislikes crowds, i'm not much for walking miles and miles in flip flops. we both don't gamble (we're the type that want something to show for the $200 we just threw away), nor are we huge drinkers (an occasional beer once in awhile, but not nearly enough to justify a trip to vegas). so honestly, we mostly stayed in the room and hung out. boring, i know.

anyhow, we had arrived on a tuesday. on thursday morning, we woke up and decided

*this is the day*

we got dressed -- i was down for jeans and a tee but the beau made me dress up a little -- and headed down to get our marriage license.

i had previously applied for one online, so the wait was literally 2 minutes. we got our license and the lady at the window told us we had to call the courthouse and schedule an appointment to be married. i called: the wait was 2 1/2 hours. so we scheduled and decided to kill time by driving down the strip.

we passed some landmarks -- gold & silver pawn (featured on history channel's "pawn stars"), some major casinos . . . and the little white wedding chapel. we decided to pull in to see the charge. we pulled up to the window and spoke with a lady in bad make-up with huge, southern hair. we negotiated fees and whatnot, passed over our information and decided to get married at a drive-thru window.

*IT.WAS.AWESOME*

lanette or ladean -- or whatever that lady's name was -- took our money, handed us a "tip envelope" for the reverend and told us to wait and a reverend would be there shortly to marry us. sure enough, pastor max zuniga came to the window just like a mcdonald's clerk would do, and began the wedding procedure. i could see lanette or ladean -- or whatever that lady's name was -- standing in the back with another lady to act our witnesses. pastor max said his piece and we exchanged rings, kissed, handed him his tip and were on our "marry" way.

*the whole thing took less than 30 minutes*

and we were married. pastor max pronounced us "mr. and mrs. gilbert," but i am keeping my own last name. it's not for any reason other than there would be so much paperwork involved to change it and the beau is perfectly okay with me keeping my name. i like my name, he likes his. no need in going through all the muss and fuss; it's already official.

*oh wait -- this isn't even the best part*

the best part is, we announced our wedding on facebook. prior to this, only two people knew. one being my sister, heather, because the beau felt it was important to ask someone for my hand in marriage before actually marrying me. since we wanted to keep it a secret from my parents, he texted her (yes, you have to love technology) and asked. i think she replied with something like, "you better marry her!" and of course, the roommate, cuz i had to get an opinion on my ring, and well, we kinda felt like she should know in advance she does live with us. but otherwise, no one knew.

i think i just posted a pic of our hands with rings and wrote, "look, ma! we got married!"

the parents were in el paso visiting another sister. my brother-in-law called my sister (who was out with my parents) and said, "did holly really get married?" my sister asked my mom, and they said something like, "what are you talking about?" and he told her that we posted it on facebook. the rest is history and

*that, my friends, is how we announced our marriage to the world.*

i mean, seriously . . . i don't know that anyone has a cooler wedding story than that! vegas, eloped in a drive-thru chapel, announced on facebook. it *is* pretty awesome, you have to admit. i feel like the winner in the deal . . . i got a great guy and a pretty nice tax break.

*win/win if you ask me!*

home improvement 101

2010-08-05T09:08:00.004-05:00

so the beau and i started some various home improvement projects around the house. we decided that for right now, we'll stick with those that are low cost but that can be done in a few days. i don't know what we were thinking when we decided to redo the kitchen cabinets!

it all started because we have (or should i say "had" now) some unfinished patio furniture. it's really sturdy and made of really good quality wood, but we never did paint / stain it. plus, we rarely sit outside (cuz it's typically too hot or there are too many mosquitoes) so we have never done anything with it. however, the beau and i were talking about how we'd like to have some dinner parties or something at some point at our house, and it would be nice to have patio furniture to use. so we bought a can of stain that is a red mahogany color (which matches our inside house dining room table and barstools) and the beau went to town staining. he got it all done and it's now outside on our patio, getting crapped on by birds (which i'm not happy about).

when the beau was done, we noticed we still had about 3/4 of a can of stain left. and it was a saturday and i was in a project-doing mood, and so i came up with the bright idea to start staining the cabinets, cuz we had talked about doing it for a long time. and we took all the cabinets off (all 17 of them) and began staining. and didn't think about it being july and how hot it is. which, for painting cabinets outside isn't bad. it's just bad when the cabinet borders have to be painted INSIDE the house . . . which means the a/c goes off and the windows are opened. and that means the house gets to be about 100-degrees and you can't stop sweating and there's no relief from the fumes of the stain or the heat of the day.

and it takes a lot longer than one weekend to finish. and quite frankly, we're still not finished. we still have cabinets left to hang and i think we're also going to have to paint another coat of stain onto the cabinet borders. it ended up going so much smoother and way more quicker in my head. but i think that overall, the cabinets look good. we're now looking to see what else we can stain . . .

anyhow, here are some pictures of our almost-completed project:

july -- and possibly august & september -- home improvement project

2010-07-27T08:41:00.003-05:00

so lately, the beau and i have been doing little "home improvement" projects around the house. nothing too pricey, but something that betters our home and is definitely noticeable. this month, we've been tackling the stainage of furniture and cabinets.

last year, we bought some new furniture for the house : bedset, dining room table with chairs, barstools. we bought it all in this beautiful mahogany red color. while i loved the dark-colored wood, the rest of the house has light furniture accents, like oak or something. and i don't like the way that it doesn't mesh. i'm sure no one else notices it, but because i'm crazy about everything matching in my house, i have noticed. we have some really nice unfinished patio furniture (thanks, daddy or chad . . . or whomever we got it from) that we decided to stain a mahogany red stain we found by minwax. we get it all stained up and head to lowe's the other day to find a sealant for it. we talk to the guy in that department and he informs us that the stain we have used on our outdoor furniture is actually for interior wood . . . which i admit, pissed me off. after all, we had gotten that specific stain based on one of lowe's employees. but the guy assured us that putting a sealant on it would help it last longer and since it sits under a covered patio and never gets direct sunlight, it should be good for years. so now my anger has subsided a little. my beau covered it in a few coats of stain and put the sealant on it. it's really nice now. but the thing is, we had half a gallon-sized can of stain left over. and what happens? we get the brilliant idea to stain the kitchen cabinets!

we start the job and finish 17 cabinets the first day. only after putting the first coat of stain on the 17, moving them to the garage to dry and putting everything away do we realize we left two cabinet doors unfinished (the ones above the fridge that we use for nothing). since we also have some drawers in the kitchen, we decided to just stain the two cabinets we missed with those. sunday rolls around and start applying a second coat to the cabinets. we only did like 12. and then the interest petered out. and guys . . . this is not good! we still have more to do, as well as the cabinet border and the backside of the cabinets! i think this is going to be a lot longer of a project than we thought. and i hope we can continue with the motivation to get it done. especially since we have the spare room furniture to stain still (my beau doesn't know we're doing that yet).

anyway, i've decided that from now on, before we jump into a "little" project, we will definitely think it through. and research it. and consider that while a project may be cheap, it's not necessarily little!

before cabinet:

after cabinet:

a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong survey

2010-07-26T09:51:00.019-05:00

i'm a little bored today and figured i'd bore you with a bunch of useless questions and answers **cuz i can.** and you'll read it and you'll like it. and maybe you won't and maybe i don't care. but for your reading pleasure anyway :

BASICS

Name: holly olga pritchard. okay, so maybe olga isn't my real middle name, but in high school i told everyone it was. and when i graduated and walked across the stage, they announced it as such. my mom was mad.

Date of Birth: 06/07/1980. can't believe i turned 30 this year . . . seems like i was just a teenager sneaking into the movie theater with my best friend leslie to meet up with our boyfriends, brandon and richard!

Birthplace: dothan, alabama. i left that place when i wasn't even one yet and never plan on going back. i may have been born in alabama, but i'm a texas girl at heart!

Current Location: killeen, texas. it's home.

Eye Color:

Hair Color: well, at the moment, i have brown trailer park roots with blonde ends. one day i'll make it back to my stylist and get my hairscut and have it highlighted, as well. in the meantime, i wear it in a ponytail every day in an attempt to disguise my horrible roots!

Height: 5'6 1/2" . . . "sometimes a girl needs a half."

Heritage: you know, every time i talk to my siblings or parents about this, my heritage changes. i think there is quite a bit of dutch and maybe some german or english. and of course, some sort of native american and maybe even some finnish or something. i think it's just easier to say i'm american.

Piercings: nope. no longer. my body rejects all metals.

Tattoos: oh tattoos. i do have four of them, and i must admit, i regret the days i got each of them. being young and dumb has left a permament "scar" on me.

FAVORITES

Band/Singer: this is a loaded question. i have so many favorites that i'd never be able to narrow it down to just one. at the moment, i'm loving tom petty. ask me tomorrow, however, and i may tell you talib kweli.

Song: again, way too many answers. however, i will say i *love* to sing fleetwood mac's "everywhere" to my beau. i absolutely love that song; he abhors it.

Movie:

no other movie has ever brought me so much joy and made me happy when i was sad. i love singing along and quoting it. makes me even happier when all my sisters and sisters-in-law quote and sing with me. when the movie isn't playing. simply to annoy my brothers and brothers-in-law.

Disney Movie: i always loved "peter pan" growing up.

TV show: right now, the beau and i are hooked on all sorts of shows like "river monsters," "modern family," "the office" and "i survived." we don't get to watch TV often, but we do DVR quite a few to pass the time when we do!

Color: charcoal grey. i have been told several times that that is not a color, but rather a shade. really, though -- is there that big of a difference?

Food: oh so many answers, so little time and space to write them all. food and i are friends. there isn't much i won't try. aside from sushi. the thought of it makes me throw up in my mouth a little.

Pizza topping: black olives, onions, bell pepper and pepperoni, please.

Ice-Cream Flavor: hmmm . . . for all of you *not* in texas or who do not HEBs in your area, i will say mint chocolate chip. those of you who do have HEBs in your area and have had the pleasure of eating creamy creations ice cream, i'm going with nutty chocolate sugar cone. or something like that. little explosions of heaven in your mouth.

Drink: triple tall sugarfree vanilla breve latte. i once tried to give them up, but just couldn't part ways. they are just that good.

Coke: let me preface this answer by saying this question was asking me my "favorite soda." however, no one in texas calls it a soda. and so i had to change it to make sense for all my fellow texans ;) and with that, i'll say dr pepper.

Store: sadly, my favorite store has changed from a fashion store to a grocery store. yes people. today, on my blog, i declare HEB to be my most favorite store. ever. nothing is quite as heavenly as that place.

Clothing Brand: i go back and forth on this one. usually, it's gap. but since becoming poor lately, it's gone back to old navy. essentially the same thing; gap just costs more and has somewhat cuter clothes. sadly, however, the quality is the same. and it's becoming harder and harder for me to justify spending $44 on a shirt. i never thought i'd see the day that i said that.

Shoe Brand: depends on what i am using the shoe for. working out it's either nike or new balance. when i played soccer, it was adidas. flip flops are whatever is comfortable. no jimmy choos or anything like that for me; those would cost me a month's paycheck.

Season: fall. nothing like fall in texas. and hayley -- i know you say there are no seasons in central texas, but believe me . . . someone from here knows the difference between summer and fall. it goes from being hot hot hot to just hot.

Month: i don't know why, but i have always loved october. it has nothing to do with halloween, cuz that is my least favorite holiday. we don't even pass out candy or open the door. we just sit at home and ignore the doorbell.

Holiday: this is a tough one. i love christmas because of all the good memories i have associated with it. it's not quite a big deal anymore now that i'm grown. maybe the first time we have the kids on christmas morning it will be a bigger deal. but i really love the fourth of july. i love the fireworks and the BBQing and the time spent with friends and family. plus, i'm a patriot and am in love with america and all that we are afforded in this country. i am so thankful for the freedoms i have.

Flower: my favorite flower has always been the star-gazer lily. my wedding bouquet (yes, for those of you who have forgotten : i was once married) was made of them. but lately, i have loved the hibiscus. maybe because we bought a pretty red one from lowe's and it has actually survived all summer under my care (which is a miracle in itself). i love them.

Make-Up Item: it's funny. i always remember my gramma telling me growing up that a lady doesn't leave the house without putting on makeup. even when she was near the end of her life and didn't leave the house much, when she did, i helped her powder her nose, rouge her cheeks and color her lips. and for the longest time, i believed that sentiment and you wouldn't catch me anywhere without makeup. except maybe the gym. but now, it seems like i'm always running late and quite frankly, i'm not looking to impress anyone. and the first thing to go was my makeup. i keep reminding myself that a lady never leaves the house without it, but then i also rationalize it that i'm more of a tomboy than a lady. but if i had to choose, i would say mascara. it makes me feel complete when i do wear it.

Board game: hmmm . . . it's a toss-up between clue and scrabble. i'm good at both. quite frankly, any game is my favorite as long as i win.

THIS or THAT

Sunny or rainy: definitely sunny. rainy is only good when you don't have to leave the house and have plenty to do on the inside.

Chocolate or vanilla:

Fruits or vegetables: i like both, but am a bigger fan of vegetables. but they have to be cooked.

Night or day: night cuz day means i have to be at work.

Sour or sweet: hmmm, between the two, i'll choose sweet. but i'd rather choose salt.

Love or money: why does it always have to be one or the other? why can't it be both?

Phone or in person: either works for me.

Looks or personality: again, why can't it be both? my beau has both.

Coffee or tea: coffee. tea is bad for you.

Hot or cold: inbetween. summers in texas are too hot and the winters are too cold. i want fall year round.

YOUR

Goal for this year: lose 40 pounds (refer to two posts below this one)

Best physical feature: well that all depends on who you ask. i like my booty, but i'm sure my dad will tell you something different!

First thought waking up: SNOOZE!

Hypothetical personality disorder: hmmm . . . either OCD or anxiety.

Preferred type of plastic surgery: i don't prefer any. the less time spent under the knife, the better. i'm not trying to die anytime soon.

Sesame street alter ego: i guess big bird since i'm the boss ;)

Fairytale alter ego: none . . . most fairytale characters are waiting on their prince charming to come and take care of them. while i love my beau, i am capable of taking care of myself.

Worst crime: i hope there are no cops reading this. i was once involved in a hit-and-run. i was 17 at the time and scared to death. it took place in my mom's van and i hit a little tiny chevette. moved it to another parking space. i never stopped and lied for years about it to my parents. i still can't believe i did that.

Greatest ambition: to be successful.

Greatest fear: dying young and dying alone. would be even worse if i died young and alone.

Darkest secret: i really can't think of any dark secrets.

Favorite subject

Worst habit: my inability to delegate at work. i'm trying to be better at it, but i still feel guilty when i ask someone else to do the work that i'm ultimately responsible for.

DO YOU

Smoke: nope. nasty habit.

Drink: rarely. and i mean that, mama and daddy.

Curse: i really try hard not to. especially since we have kids around a lot more often now. usually i will if i hurt myself. or i'm super incredibly mad. but otherwise, i say thinks like "blast" or "crikey" or "bastard!" (which mama, is not really a curse word).

Shower daily: sometimes twice.

Like thunderstorms: as long as they don't knock my power out, i'm fine with them.

Sing: much to the chagrin of my beau, i do. and i sing loud and horribly. and he secretly loves it when i do.

Play an instrument: i can pick a tune or two out on the piano. i used to be really good at it. and the french horn. now? not so much.

Get along with your parents: swimmingly. i am happy to say that my relationship with my parents is a complete 180 from how it was when i was a teenager. i talk to my mama just about every day and we see them quite often during the week. they do a lot for me and i could never thank them enough.

Wish on stars: only on shooting stars.

Believe in fate: yes and no.

Believe in love at first sight: no. i'm a realist. that's called lust, people.

CAN YOU

Drive: yes, but i'm what you'd call a distracted driver. and so i don't drive often.

Sew: not at all. not even a button. i guess in theory i could sew on a button if i had to, but i just let my beau take care of all that. he used to be in the marines, so he says it was required of him to do that.

Cook: i can.

Speak another language: only a little bit of restaurant spanish, and that might not even be the case anymore since i haven't worked in a restaurant in years.

Dance: of course. although i haven't done it in a long time.

Sing: not at all, but that doesn't stop me from pretending i can!

Whistle: not well. barely at all.

Curl your tongue: yep.

HAVE YOU EVER

Been Drunk: more times than i can remember or am willing to admit to.

Been Stoned/High: not unless you can count my ambien highs. never been high on any sort of illegal drug.

Eaten Sushi: i think i have tried eel before with my sister. she thought i'd like it cuz it's salty. i couldn't get passed the texture. i settled on teriyaki chicken.

Been in Love: sure, why not?

Skipped school: i almost didn't graduate cuz i missed so much school my senior year. we used to go shopping in austin. leave at 8am and get back in time for the final bell at 401pm. those were the days.

Made prank calls: not recently. everyone has caller ID now. and no one answers blocked calls, so it would be no fun.

Sent someone a love letter: ah, back in the days. now i just facebook my beau and tell him i love him. how romantic, right?

Stolen something: just a few hearts ;)

OTHERS

What annoys you most in a person?
*i think lying annoys me the most. i hate when people lie to me.

Are you right- or left-handed?
*right handed.

What is your bedtime?
*sadly, it's like 830pm. i take my ambien at 8pm and am usually falling asleep 30 minutes to an hour later. yes, i know the sun is still out at 8pm. what can i say . . . i'm an old lady.

Name three things you can't live without:
*coffee, bottled water, phone

What is the color of your room?
*tan and red (more specifically, ponytail and bangkok rust)

Do you have any siblings?
*i have enough siblings for me and you. seven total.

Do you have any pets?
*i'm ashamed to admit that i am now a pet owner. his name is inspektor phinneas von owens, III. he is a miniature pinscher. he is 11 months and way too hyper:

Would you kill someone you hate for a million dollars?
*i don't really hate anyone that i can think of, so i'm not sure i'd be able to kill someone for a million. however, i might be able to break someone's legs for a million. i'd just make sure to pay their medical bills.

What are you nicknames?
*you know, i don't really have a lot of nicknames. my mama calls me holly dolly or hol dol. my dad calls me pumpkin or squirt. and my beau calls me babe usually.

Are you for or against gay marriage?
*i'm not about to tell anyone who they can or can't love, nor am i going to get into this topic here on my blog.

What are your thoughts on abortion?
*whatever my thoughts are, they are my thoughts. and again, i don't feel like sharing them. buh-bye.

Do you have a crush on anyone?
*oh, i do. have you ever seen "river monsters" on animal planet? if so, then you know who jeremy wade is. and that's my crush. and before you go and criticize me for having a crush on someone other than my beau, know this : he has a man-crush on him, too, so it's okay.

Are you afraid of the dark?
*negative . . . the darker the better.

How do you want to die?
*happy.

Would you take a bullet for the one you love?
*oooh . . . as much as i love my beau, i love myself more. so no. i'd be sad if he were shot, but this is survival of the fittest, people!

What is the last law you’ve broken?
*ummmm, driving from my mama's house to my house with no seatbelt on.

What color shirt are you wearing?
*white

Name three things that are physically close to you:
*laptop, bottled water, cellphone

What is the last book you read?
*

Are you or were you a good student?
*i don't know that i was necessarily a good student; i just picked up easily on things and knew random things. i also learned good study techniques which came in handy. especially for those days i slept in class.

What's your favorite sport?
*to play:

to watch:

Do you enjoy sleeping late?
*oh how i love it! i actually slept til 11am on saturday and 10am on sunday. it was marvelous!

What's the weather like right now?
*

Who tells the best jokes?
*you know, he may not tell the best jokes and quite frankly, he's prolly one of the worst joke tellers i've heard tell a joke, but my little brother (scott) wins this category. the kid can tell an entire joke and forget the punchline. gotta love it.

What was the last thing you dreamed about?
*the last thing i remember dreaming about was my dad and me smoking the biggest blunt you've ever seen. it was a swisher sweet stuffed full of weed. and huge. and we were very high.

Do you collect anything? If so, what?
*i collect cash. if you're interested in donating to my collection, hit me up. i have plenty of room to add yours to mine.

Are you proud of yourself?
*i'm proud of what i have accomplished, but i do think i should have accomplished more by now.

Are you reliable?
*i really try to be.

Have you ever given money to a bum?
*that i have. however, since i started watching "intervention," i have a hard time giving money to them. i'd rather buy them a meal than give them cold hard cash.

What's your favorite invention?
*hmmm . . . this is a good question. there are so many i love, but i am going to have to say an espresso maker!

Is your room messy?
*i prefer the word cluttered. and it's mainly cuz we don't have any shelving in my room. if i had it, it would be a lot less cluttered, for sure.

What do you like better: oranges or apples?
*

Do you give in easily?
*um, i do when i'm guilted. and my mama can give a mean guilt trip!

Do you have a job?
*i do . . . and i think i like it.

What time did you wake up this morning?
*late. way later than usual. had to rush.

What did you eat for breakfast this morning?
*um, i didn't exactly eat breakfast. i came to work and had every intention of eating; however, my yogurt expired on 8 July.

What's your favorite day of the week and why?
*i am a big fan on the weekend. i used to love tuesdays, but now i have to work on tuesdays. i'll say sundays because we get to eat at mama's house and see the family.

Would you ever go skydiving?
*i don't think i would. i prefer to keep my feet on the ground.

What toothpaste do you use?
*colgate total. sometimes gel, sometimes paste. sometimes whitening, sometimes not. really depends on if it's on sale.

Do you enjoy challenges?
*i enjoy being told i'll fail when i know i'll succeed.

What's the worst injury you have had?
*concussion in the ninth grade. the only game my daddy was ever late for. and he missed the whole thing. however, he did stay most of the night in the hospital with me.

What's the last movie you saw?
*we watched "the bounty hunter" the other day. one of the worst movies i've seen in a long time.

What does your last text message say?
*"okay" from my beau. he was asking me for a grocery list and i told him i hadn't made one.

What is your dream vacation?
*at this point, any vacation is my dream vacation. i'd love to go to italy, hawaii or puerto rico. hopefully we'll do all three in the next three years.

What is your favorite animal?
*any animal i don't have to take care of.

Do you need to do laundry?
*that i do, even though my beau just did it friday. i am out of jeans.

Do you listen to the radio?
*only my iPod or pandora.

Where were you when 9/11 happened?
*

What color are your bed sheets?
*the ones on my bed now are dark brown. i try to keep the same colors throughout all of my house, including the sheets.

What's your ringtone?
*depends on the person. most are the generic, iPhone xylophone ringtone. my mom's is stewie from "family guy;" little brother's is "encarnacion" from nacho libre; colby's (my nephew) is "have you ever seen the rain?" by CCR; daddy's is "california dreamin'" by the mamas and the papas; my beau's is "jammin'" by bob marley; heather's is "tarantula" by bob schneider.

Do you watch cartoons?
*never on purpose. whenever we have the kids, a lot of cartoons filter onto the TV. and it sucks. unless it's phinneas and ferb, which i think is funny. but i hate spongebob now.

Do you hold grudges?
*oh how i wish.

the passing of the celica . . . and horsepills

2010-07-25T20:36:00.004-05:00

so when i went away to college in my early twenties, i was the proud owner of a 1981 ford ranger F100. nowadays, a ranger is a tiny truck that really has no purpose, i don't think. but back in 1981, it was a bad ass truck . . . very big and bulky and made all of metal. i ran over things and ran into things and never once dented my truck. it had an oil leak that was so bad that i literally carried a case of oil in the bed of the truck. every morning, i popped the hood and poured an entire bottle of oil into the engine; repeated this ritual just about every single morning for the year or two i owned this truck. it had the original push / knob radio, a cloth bench seat and most importantly, it could hit about 65mph tops when it was warmed up. it took me all over college station and back and forth to and from killeen on weekends i didn't have to work.

and then one day, it suddenly became unreliable. the leak got worse and worse and it started to have trouble making the trip back and forth from college to home and back. i was a poor college student, though . . . worked a full-time job, went to school full-time but still never had enough money to do much of anything. and in stepped my father.

he had gone onto the "lemon lot" on fort hood a few times over the months i had been having car trouble and he found a sporty little toyota celica for me. the GI selling it was getting ready to deploy and he really just wanted to sell it. one guy offered him $2000 cash; Daddy offered him a $1500 check with a sob story about his daughter in college. needless to say, daddy got the car. he and mom drove it down to college station one weekend and we traded cars. he got my truck to take home and use for his pool business; i got a reliable, sporty (albeit somewhat ugly and banged up) celica to cruise around town in. i loved it instantly.

my friends and i had great adventures in that car when i was in college. one summer, between spring and summer semesters, my best college friend (veronica) and i hopped into the celica and took a week and a half road trip to california. we had never been and it seemed like a good idea. we got out of texas and into new mexico the first night; onto california the second day. we hit the beach and knew we were styling in my sports car, whom by now i called Celi (pronounced 'Selly'). after our week in cali was up, veronica and i loaded celi back up and made the long trek back to texas. we even outran a cop on the new mexico border into el paso. my celi was the shiznit.

a few years and a few wrecks later, my poor celi was no longer as fast as she once was, and was even uglier than she was when i got her. mismatched -- and later, i found out, not even the same sized -- tires seemed to help add to the flats and blow-outs i had often. i had a blow out on one of the tires one night in a rain storm on my way to see my college boyfriend. i sat on the side of the road for over an hour waiting on him to come get me. he finally did and ended up dumping me that weekend. perhaps celi was trying to prevent me from going down there that weekend, from getting my heartbroken. it was definitely an omen. but i lived and learned, i suppose.

celi made it's way back home with me to killeen and we both settled nicely into my parents' house. one morning, someone broke into my car and stole the only nice thing i had in the car -- my sony XPLODE sound system my parents' had paid for and had installed in my car not even a year prior for my birthday. i drove around for a long time with cardboard and duct tape on the back window before my brother pulled a favor from someone and they fixed my window for me. and then there were wrecks and soon the bumper was falling off and the trunk didn't open. it was a mess.

one afternoon, i took it into the mechanic (the same mechanic we have used for like 20 years) and i was told i would be better off buying a new car rather invest in fixing everything that was wrong with it. and so, i faced a dilemma because i didn't have money to buy anything. my brother, again, stepped in and helped me buy a 2000 dodge stratus from a major on post who had used the car for the live-in nanny he employed. he wanted $8000 for it, and quite frankly, he could've prolly gotten more for it than that; we offered $5000 and he took it. and then suddenly i had this stratus and my celi was no longer needed.

fast forward a few months to me being out of a job for one reason or another and suddenly i'm $600 behind on the rent i owed my parents. at this time, dad's van was in bad bad bad shape and he was looking for a beater to get him around, to and from work, etc. in stepped celi. daddy and i agreed that i would essentially "sell" him celi for the $600 i owed him and then the love affair of celi and my daddy began.

for years they went all over town. and they broke down all over town. but dad managed to get things fixed on it little by little -- nothing aesthetic, of course. my daddy's theory on cars is that it is a tool. no need to have something pretty when you're just gonna run it into the ground anyway. and believe me, it was run into the ground -- and quite a bit of poles, too -- and about on it's last leg.

mom and daddy decided they needed new cars eventually. one got a camry, one got a corolla . . . and like that, celi was the red-headed stepchild no one wanted. she has sat in dad's driveway for a few months now, never running, never moving. nothing. he and mom finally decided to call a charity and have it donated but then i intervened.

my beau and i have been looking for a car for him to use to get to and from school, and to serve papers. we had been sharing the stratus for a few months now : he drops me off at work in the morning, and picks me up at lunch so i can take him to school and take the car back to work. after work, i pick him up from school and we would serve papers in it. problem with that is, my stratus isn't the most gas-efficient car out there. and surprisingly, the celica is. and so i asked dad if i could re-own the stratus from him. i didn't wanna pay anything for it aside from the fees to change the title over to our name and to pay any taxes on it. ended up costing $100.60. about $100.60 more than i wanted to pay, but at least now we have a second means of transportation.

and although it's his car and he'll be the one driving it, my beau asked me not to ever mention that. he usually has the same theory my daddy has on cars -- that they're just tools. but today, we took it for a ride around the block and to get it washed, and we were both thoroughly embarrassed by it. blue smoke pours out of the back pipe thing and it smells bad. we took it to the carwash to see if that would help, but after we were done washing, we realized it was still an ugly car. and so i decided, at that moment, to take the proud owner approach and post pics of my beauty. and without further ado, here she is, MSSSSSSS. CELI!

and my absolute favorite, cuz it shows the seat cover:

and PS : when did the pharmaceutical companies start making pills the size of a horse suppository? this is a picture of my calcium pill, which i am required to take since i'm on the b/c shot, compared to my sleep and anxiety pills. it's huge:

hopefully tomorrow's post will be a lot more interesting than tonight's. i'll be posting all about our home improvement projects! i know, you just can't wait!

this little piggy had roast beef . . .

2010-07-21T20:04:00.003-05:00

it's a hard realization to accept being fat. and i'm not one of those skinny jerks who looks in the mirror and sees fat when there is none. i am genuinely big. like over 200 pounds big and prolly about twenty more than that. no one can tell me i'm not fat and make me believe it.

the size 16 clothes i tried on -- or should i say attempted to try on -- that were way too tight told me i'm fat. all of my size 14 pants i tucked away neatly for later use a few months ago told me i'm fat. my mirror told me i'm fat. and i'm finally listening.

last year -- a mere 14 months ago -- i was 40 pounds lighter. yes, FORTY pounds. how does a person gain that much weight in just over one year? how has my body not imploded (or rather, exploded) from the sheer force of an extra forty pounds? how have i been okay with this all this time? why do i seemingly not care?

i believe that over the last year, i have rationalized my weight gain. last year started off fantastically. i was forty pounds lighter, for one, and was the smallest, and more importantly, the healthiest i have been since i played soccer in high school. i felt great. full of energy and life! i worked out monday-friday and ate healthy. and even when i ate unhealthily, i was able to balance that with exercise. and when i had one bad day, i made sure i had at least five good days.

now my one bad day has turned into 14 months of bad days, with maybe five good days in there total.

last year, i met a man. i'm not blaming him, however, as i realize he can't force me to eat what i have eaten. i do know i am happy with him. and with that happiness has come complacency and relaxation. i finally feel like i have met someone who is just about perfect for me and i have reveled in that. i stopped caring about what i looked like cuz, after all, i found someone who loved me for me and told me i was beautiful at a size 10, size 12, size 14, and tonight, even more than a size 16. but honestly, who wants a fat mate?

i have always been very aware of my weight. i have known that carbs cause me to gain, and so for years i avoided sweets and tried to limit them to a healthy number daily. to me, it was never a big deal and i never craved sweets. i never bought them and never ate dessert at sunday dinner. however, within the last year or so, i started giving in to someone's birthday cake or someone else making homemade brownies or bringing over creamy creations ice cream. and i have indulged, believe you me. it's even become the joke at my parents' house on sunday nights for me to say, "well, tomorrow i start my diet." i say it every sunday. and i've realized that in the last year, when i meant it before, now i just say it for laughs. i know that deep down i haven't had intentions of a diet for a long time now.

my sister-in-law, whom i won't name for purposes of privacy, once mentioned something about "having a food baby." you know . . . when you eat so much at a meal that your tummy pooches out and no matter what, you can't suck it in and you look pregnant. sadly, this has become a joke in my relationship for awhile now. every night, i lay on the bed and rub my belly and talk to my food baby to make my beau laugh. and we laugh together. really, it's upsets me, but i know if i laugh about it, i can make myself feel better about it.

i have really noticed how fat i am here recently because i have noticed how well my daddy is doing on his diet. he had gastric bypass surgery last month after struggling for years with his weight. it seems like every time i see him, he is skinnier and skinnier and can fit into clothes he, literally, hasn't worn in years. and that's when i realize i'm no longer fitting into clothes i have worn for years. i'm growing out of everything. and quite honestly, neither my ego nor my wallet can afford that.

i must point out that i didn't write this blog for people to feel sorry for me, to tell me i look great, to lie to me. i wrote this because i need to face the fact that i am fat. that i am unhealthy. i am lethargic and, i admit it, lazy. i can't remember the last time i exercised or the last time i ate something not smothered in some sort of sauce or gravy or butter. i wrote this because i want everyone to hold me accountable for my actions as i need to hold myself accountable. and i won't be cheesy and say something like, "and so, on this blog, i vow to lose weight!" but i will say i am going to do my damndest to be healthier. i will do my damndest to exercise. i will do my damndest to make better decisions for myself.

my goal is to lose forty pounds in the next year. i figure that's a realistic goal. i mean, if i gained forty in a year, i should be able to lose that much in a year. after all, my sister lost 100 pounds in a year from exercise and eating healthy.

secretly, my real goal is to be able to wear a bikini next july and not have the fabric be lost in the rolls of my fat. because believe me, it's not a pretty sight.

guess who's back?

2009-12-05T21:31:00.002-06:00

so i have been MIA for a few months now. not entirely sure why. just haven't spent the time getting on here to write. prolly cuz my life is pretty bland and boring right now. but i will write when i can think of anything to write about. kinda hard since my beau is in kuwait and i do pretty much nothing. ooooh . . . perhaps i'll post tomorrow about my venture back into the restaurant business. remind me of that.

and hayley -- i'm totally buying myself a SNUGGIE for christmas.

ugh!

2009-09-25T14:22:00.000-05:00

i was totally going to blog today about a great topic, but i forgot what it was.

an issue being addressed that really shouldn't need to be addressed . . .

2009-09-17T11:27:00.002-05:00

so i have developed quite the pet peeve while working here with my new company. it's not something that has ever been much of an issue at my past jobs, but this job takes my pet peeve to a whole new level. what is it?

**people not flushing the toilet when they're done using it.**

and i'm not talking just about "number one." i mean the whole sha-bang, the whole enchilada, the "number two." so far, i have gone to the bathroom seven times today -- blame all the water i drink (so far three bottles, which is actually less than i typically drink) for the amount of times i use the lavatory, but this is all not the point -- and five of the times i have gone, **i have had to flush behind someone** (and three of those times were for more than just pee and toilet paper).

okay, i guess i didn't have to flush behind them, but i am just that person. no one wants to walk into a bathroom stall and !surprise! there's last night's dinner floating in the toilet, in the form of, well, "number two" (i'm trying to keep this post somewhat clean, despite the nasty topic). and so i irritatedly flush the toilet so that the next person who walks in isn't caught off guard by what i saw.

now i know there is another business that is located here in this strip center, so i can't entirely blame it on my co-workers. but the only other business here is a "daycare" for the mentally handicapped, and anytime one of the clients goes to the bathroom, they are accompanied by a supervisor, whom i always hear tell them to flush the toilet. and that makes it even less acceptable, if they aren't flushing the toilet, because there are two people there who can flush.

i have never left a stall without flushing first, and yet **it seems pretty commonplace here at my job.** i just don't understand it. i hear people in the process of potty-training a child tell that child to "flush the toilet." it's something we all have learned. i work with people WITH DEGREES! with MILITARY EXPERIENCE! you would think they would be able to police up after themselves. i am not the united states and my co-workers are not foreign countries.

**there is no reason that i should be handling their business.**

pink pink, you stink!

2009-09-16T08:37:00.003-05:00

so sometimes i am a mean person (surprise, surprise). i never intend to be, but there are **things that happen or outfits that people wear** that bring out the mean-spiritedness in me and i just can't contain myself.

said bad outfit occurred yesterday. and i couldn't resist. he is a co-worker, so i did the courtesy of cropping his head out of the picture. but the rest of this outfit? **too classic not to post.**

notice the salmon-colored pants, the light pink shirt . . . just notice it all. and laugh. cuz sometimes, **i think it's okay to laugh at other people's expense.** it keeps us sane.

and perhaps, **it will make us all think twice** about wearing certain outfits!

frank, jr.

2009-09-13T22:19:00.002-05:00

so if you know my father, you know that he is just about the clumsiest guy ever . . . tied with three of my brothers. those three are all just about as clumsy as he is. however, his girls are all equally as clumsy (including me). we may not all look like ol' frankie one eye (as we like to call him since he lost his right eye to cancer and had it removed), but **we all inherited his clumsy gene.**

and before he comments on this note and says he's not clumsy, let me just give you **a rundown of some of his most famous "moments" :**

-- fell down concrete stairs playing santa claus at church and broke his ankle. ended up in the emergency room in full santa garb.

-- kicked a watermelon once on accident. the rind ended up wedging itself between his toe and his toenail. he had to have surgery to have it removed.

-- dropped a frozen pork roast on his foot and broke his ankle. twice.

-- had corrective surgery on his nose to fix his deviated septum; something ends up happening that i can't remember and he runs into a guy or something and his corrective surgery? done for nothing. guy breaks his nose and dad again has a deviated septum.

-- was sitting on the bench of a picnic table; picnic table ends up flipping over and he falls into a fire, burning his hand.

-- is standing inside a small pop-up trailer that my brother failed to mount properly, while preparing his bed for the night; trailer flips on one end and my father falls and gets trapped inside the trailer until my brothers come to his rescue.

-- middle of vietnam war : dad is walking in the dark in his barracks, kicks a bunk bed and breaks his toe (i think it was a toe; it might've been his foot); he likes to tell the story that had they been under attack at that very moment, he would've received a purple heart for his injury.

-- is getting out of the cab of a semi tow truck. misses the step, falls out of the tow truck. stands up, bloody from head to toe, thanks the man for the ride in the tow truck, shuts the door and goes inside the house.

pretty sure that my list can go on and on, but as you can see . . . my point is proven. **my daddy is, by far, one of the clumsiest men i know and now, prolly one of the clumsiest men you know.** so why am i talking about this today? cuz unfortunately, as mentioned previously, i am my father's daughter.

i run into walls constantly. and it's not like i am walking in the dark or in an unfamiliar place. i am typically walking from the living room to my bedroom, via the kitchen. for some reason, whenever i take that corner from the kitchen to my bedroom, **nine times out of ten, i run into the wall.** and i have the bruises to prove it. funny thing is, i have had conversations with my brothers and sisters and they all do the same thing. that one time out of ten that i miss the wall? it's cuz i have to consciously think, "i will not run into that wall" when i am walking by it. my brothers and sisters do the same thing.

once, at dinner, daddy noticed some of my bruises and asked what i did. i told him **my beau beats me.** my beau looked mortified (mind you, this was still fairly new into the relationship). my daddy laughed and asked me what really happened. he knows me too well. turns out, i could only tell him what happened with one of the bruises. the other twelve? not sure where those came from, but undoubtedly, they were from a wall or a desk corner or something of that nature.

last weekend, my beau and i spent the better part of it cleaning and organizing. at one point, he leaves the bedroom to put something away. what do i do? **walk by the bed and kick it,** stubbing my toe to the point that i was pretty sure i broke it (and it's still sore, by the way). of course i screamed and said a few expletives and my beau comes running in. he asks me what happened, am i okay and i just tell him i'm fine. again, he asks what happens, but i refuse to tell him, stating that he makes fun of me and calls me "frank, jr" whenever i hurt myself. he shakes his head, turns and exits the room, leaving me there to rub my toe and wipe tears out of my eyes.

i would go ahead and list all of my latest debaucles but quite honestly, i can't remember how i got most of my bruises. i do remember that i once stepped off the front porch at my parents' house, landing half on the sidewalk, and half in a hole. **twisted my ankle and ended up tearing all the ligaments on the top of my foot.**i still have a bad ankle from that. and once you hurt an ankle in the pritchard family, you always hurt that same ankle.

last night **which brings me to the whole reasoning behind this post** i was putting things away in my room. i happen to have a full-length mirror resting against one of the walls in my bedroom cuz i haven't yet hung it on said wall. let me preface all this with the fact that a couple of times that this mirror has been moved from my room to other places and then put back against the wall in my room for various reasons, i have managed to chip off one of the corners of the mirror, basically leaving a sharp, jagged edge (see picture below).

so what do i do? walk too close to the wall and the said mirror and slice open my "pinky" toe. i can't say that the cut wasn't bad enough for stitches, but since i have no medical insurance, i knew that that wasn't happening. **three bandaids and five bloodied tissues later,** my toe stops bleeding enough for me to put a bandaid on it that i don't have to take off ten minutes later due to the fact that it's blood-soaked and no longer effective at stopping the bleeding. and i can't help but laugh at myself and to silently thank my daddy in my head for those clumsy genes.

and so now, **whenever my beau calls me frank, jr., i just laugh it off.** i might as well quit denying my fate and realize that should i ever have to have kids one day, they'll prolly end up with the same clumsy gene, and their significant others will call them "holly, jr." at least i have someone else to blame for my genes.

**i'm not sure where my daddy gets his from.**

do you think the surgeon general smokes?

2009-09-09T13:17:00.009-05:00

so on my way to work yesterday, i passed a very pretty girl driving a very pretty car. i happened to notice her cuz she almost hit me as i was passing her on the highway. when i looked over to shake my fist at her, i realized the reasoning of her subpar driving: she was texting with one hand and flicking her cigarette out the tiny crack of her window with the other. and you know, i wasn't even mad about the texting or the whole no-hands-on-the-wheel bit.

**i was upset about the cigarette.**

like i said, the girl was pretty. long flowing hair, dark complexion. i didn't get to gaze into her eyes or anything like that so i can't tell you what color her eyes were, but i thought that she was very attractive. until i saw that cigarette. that took away the prettiness and it was replaced with an image of an old wrinkled lady with a hacking cough, choking up a lung while sucking on her oxygen and cigarette alternately.

**not a very pretty site, huh?**

i can remember being in the ninth grade and playing soccer with a girl who, for the sake of this blog, i will call "jane doe." one day, while we were changing for practice, jane doe realized she had forgotten an extra practice shirt. because i had worn a t-shirt to school that day, i gave her my intended practice shirt, wore the same one i had on already, and we went out to practice. a couple of days later, we were again in the locker room getting ready to change and she mentioned that she had brought my shirt back, freshly washed the night prior by her mother. she pulls the shirt out of her bag, presses it to her face, and takes a long sniff and tells me how wonderfully clean it smelled, like fresh flowers or something. she throws it to me and tells me to smell. i lift the shirt to my nose and take a huge whiff . . . and **smell nothing but stale cigarette smoke.**

of course, i don't wanna hurt jane doe's feelings, so i lie to her and tell her how flowery it does smell as i stifle a cough and try to hold in the tears that have quickly formed in the corner of each eye. and because she has made such a big deal about how great this shirt smells, another girls grabs the shirt out of my hand and presses it to her nose. **and she isn't so nice.**

"EEEEEW!" i remember her screeching. "that doesn't smell flowery! that smells like cigarettes!" and she throws the shirt back at me. jane doe looks at me as if her feelings are hurt, and i shrug my shoulders, throw the shirt in my dirty clothes bag and locker and quickly run out to the practice field.

i don't really have a point to this blog, other than to say that i think smoking is dithguthting. i have a few friends who still do it and they all know my opinion. i am one of those people who makes a HUGE deal when someone lights up in front of me. i cough, i act like i can't breathe -- in general, **i make them feel bad** for doing it. i don't do it to insult anyone or to offend any smokers out there, however. i just prefer to breathe fresher air than a cloud of cigarette smoke allows. and okay, okay -- i guess i have to admit here that frankly, i kind of like being an ass sometimes.

**so sue me.**

TDY again

2009-08-29T15:35:00.002-05:00

so i have been at this academy for work since monday. it's basically a two week long course on how to use this program that i work with. it's pretty boring and i prolly should study more, but i think i have it down. i guess we'll see once i take the final exam on it this coming week.

in the meantime, i got my first "assignment" for work. brace yourself . . . i am going to camp shelby, mississippi. i am not entirely thrilled about it, but i hear it's only two hours from new orleans. i'm hoping that that is true and that i can make my way down to new orleans at some point when i'm down there. i haven't been there in forever and was only there for two days when i went. when i was in college. at mardi gras. so i am looking forward to heading that way again and doing some touristy things that have nothing to do with mardi gras or fat tuesday.

trying to think what else to write about. quite frankly, i live a boring life and don't have much to write about. i know i had something to write about, but now i can't think about what it was i wanted to say here. so i guess for now, i'll close this out and be boring.

i now pronounce you . . . father and daughter?

2009-08-20T11:10:00.005-05:00

at my office, i sit in a room with other people who do the same job as i do, or one very similar. we sit at long brown tables, typically 2 or 3 people per table. there are no cubicles and **virtually no privacy.** because of that reason, i'm careful with what i do and what people can see on my computer. right now, my desktop picture is one of my niece and nephew, right after she was born. i don't have pictures of my beau on there or anything that i wouldn't want unwanted questions about. naturally.

i just happened to glance up and notice my co-worker's screensaver slideshow contains a picture of beautiful pregnant lady, whose belly is exposed, with the only thing covered being her breasts, with a small black strip, which from this angle, i can't tell if it's something she was wearing, or if the picture was censored. i could see that being on some young kid's laptop at home or even in this dude's pictures folder on his desktop or external hard drive. the creepy part is that **the picture is of his daughter.** i just don't think i'd ever feel comfortable enough to take a picture like that to give to my father. not to mention the pants she wears in the picture are incredibly low-cut. but it's just not that picture. he has several on there of his daughter in otherwise seemingly sexy poses. and even some of his wife, whom you can tell is older but is very pretty. just think of glamour shots in the mall and you know exactly what poses these girls are in. nothing too suggestive, but something that will definitely make the imagination wander.

to me, i just don't feel that **it's entirely appropriate for a work laptop.** granted, the man has other pictures on there -- pics of his motorcycle, of him riding the bike, of his daughter's wedding. but there are just several provocative pictures of his daughter that, in my opinion, should've been given to her husband and not her father. and he proudly displays them.

**again, can i reiterate the word creepy here?**

long lost picture of heidi . . .

2009-08-19T13:10:00.005-05:00

so in case you are wondering who heidi is, i'm not talking about the piggy-tailed blonde swedish girl from the fairytales. i'm talking about my oldest sister. she lives on a 400-acre ranch in rural arkansas with her husband and 7 kids (well 6, since one resides in idaho for the next two years).

regardless, i was looking through some old pictures i have, and found this one of my oldest sister. it was taken a few thanksgivings ago, when the weather was still warm enough to run around without a shirt and in shorts. this is her at the town's annual "redneck festival" (seriously, that's what it's called), where she took home the title of REDNECK QUEEN for her bellyflop. we're all so proud of her!

enjoy and comment!

five-star cooking, right?

2009-08-19T08:10:00.004-05:00

so apparently not cooking for almost a month can really affect one's cooking skills. or at least mine, anyway. last night, my beau had a few errands to run right around dinnertime, and even though i promised him i wouldn't cook and he could cook for me when he got home, he took too long, i got hungry and in turn, started cooking. simple enough task . . . saute the chicken, steam the broccoli, boil the pasta and make a quick cheesy lemon garlic sauce to pour over the broccoli and pasta. easy enough, right? **apparently not.**

first of all, i admit that whenever i cook, i have a timing issue. i typically don't consider that something like chicken takes a lot longer to cook than, say, broccoli. and so i start the broccoli at the same time i start the chicken and my broccoli ends up being ready quite a few minutes before the chicken and is only lukewarm by the time we actually eat. it's something i've been trying to work on, but **i'm completely scatterbrained most of the time** and i forget and make timing mistakes all the time.

well last night, it was a little different. my beau had already seasoned the meat and cut the broccoli before he left for his errands. when i got hungry, i went into the kitchen and started getting things in pans and whatnot, at the same time talking with my roommate about schizophrenics (she's a social work major AND we were watching true crime). **apparently this was all too much for my brain to handle,** and after putting the vegetable steamer in the pot and the broccoli in that, i just turned the stove on and threw the pot on the burner. without water in the pot. and let it "steam" that way for prolly close to ten minutes before i noticed a bad odor and remembered what i had done. i quickly pulled the pot off the stove, put water in it and put it back on there. needless to say, the broccoli had a slightly-burned-tasting-a-lot-like-metal flavor to it that we both had to drown out with tons of that sauce i was telling you about.

and about that sauce. see what had happened was . . . to start the sauce, you have to melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a pan. so i turned the burner on, on high of course cuz i wanted to get the pan hot really quick, and threw the butter in. and then i forgot that butter burns very easily if it's too hot. and so my butter burned. all this was going on when my broccoli was supposedly steaming (pre-water in the pot) so you can **just imagine the sweet smell of burned butter and heated metal** wafting through my kitchen. it was at this point that my back was turned to the stove and i didn't even realize anything was burning when my roommate asked me what the smell was. and that's when it dawned on me that my butter was scalding and the broccoli had no water in it. of course i couldn't wholely smell the burning cuz the chicken was already sauteeing at this time and it did smell good.

as all of this is going on, my chicken is cooking and the noodles are boiling. by now i've thrown out the burned butter and started over with the sauce. everything seems to be going well. and then the chicken gets done, the sauce thickens, the pasta softens . . . and the broccoli still isn't cooked. remember what i said about timing? this time it was backwards, though. had i put water in the pot originally, i'm inclined to say that **everything would've prolly turned out done at about the same time.** but this time, because the broccoli took so long, the noodles were a bit cold and the sauce was just a bit too thick. the chicken was still okay, but the onions i threw in with it were now pretty much caramelized.

the broccoli finally finishes steaming -- or is as steamed as i was going to let it get cuz i was tired of waiting for it to become completely done. it was a bit crunchy, but nothing that was unedible. i mean, people eat raw broccoli all the time anyway, right? right. i make up two plates, one for me and the other for my beau, and we settle in to eat. and all i can taste when i eat the broccoli is burned metal. and since i didn't scrub the burned butter out of the bottom of the pan, the sauce tastes a bit like that, which adds to the burned flavor of the broccoli and kind of ruins the pasta. the noodles are lukewarm and the **sauce has the texture of oatmeal** at this point. i admit it: not my best meal.

and then my beau takes a bite of everything, and tells me how **great it all tastes.** and then i remember why i keep him around . . . no matter how bad my cooking is, or how horrible of a mood i'm in, or how irritated i get so quickly, he is always there to tell me how great my cooking is, how amazing i am, how he's lucky to have me in his life.

**and that always makes me feel better.**

a question . . .

2009-08-18T08:33:00.002-05:00

so i got this cavity filled the other day, and i must say that my tooth is bothering me more now than it did when it wasn't filled.

**is that normal?**

the grasshopper

2009-08-17T13:13:00.005-05:00

so over the weekend, my beau and i were out running errands. at one point, i had run into the store, which was located in a strip mall, and he waited for me in the car. i turned around and looked outside as i waited my turn in line and noticed a huge leaf on my windshield wiper. i didn't think anything about it til it started to move. and then i realized that it actually wasn't a leaf but a **gigantic grasshopper!** it was dithguthting! i should've told my beau to use my camera in my purse to snap a pic or two, but i forgot it was in there and he used his iPhone instead and got these three shots. i would've also put a quarter down on the ground next to the grasshopper so you could see the difference in size, but that's just me. oh well. here are the pictures, if you can even tell what they are. i just thought they were neat!

mr. grasshopper, hanging out on my windshield wiper (i wish you could really see how big he was . . . and now that i think about it: are grasshoppers 'hes' and 'shes' or are they 'its?')

escaping the papparazzi that is my beau

one more shot before the party's over

and a random question . . .

2009-08-17T09:06:00.001-05:00

is anyone else having trouble trying to post comments to my blog or to your own? i can post on other people's, but i cannot post on my own. and some people have told me they are having trouble posting on mine, while others are having no trouble at all. i don't know what to do! if you have a suggestion or know the solution, please email me at holly_pritch@yahoo.com

**thanks**

. . . losing my religion . . .

2009-08-17T08:28:00.003-05:00

so i'm a big believer in separation of church and state. not saying i believe that a prayer before a football game is inappropriate or anything like that, but i definitely believe that religion has no business being in anything not religious.

**like work, for example**

two of my co-workers discuss religion at length every single day. and while i understand it's their right and their belief, it really gets on mine -- and everyone else's -- nerves. if there is one thing i am not, it's pushy. and i never discuss religion, politics or most of my beliefs with people (or in front of people) because i never wanna make someone feel as though i am pushing my thoughts and beliefs on them. and i completely feel that they are pushing all of their beliefs on me whenever they discuss religion. it's one thing if you invite me in on the conversation and give me the choice to say yes or no. but simply talking -- and might i add, very loudly -- about it really irritates me.

**and it's not because i'm not very religious**

it's like my daddy. he is huge into politics and loves to send out political emails. however, because he knows my thoughts on politics, and because i have asked him to refrain from sending me anything deemed "political," he doesn't send me anything anymore. and i kind of wish i could say something to these two guys about it. ask them to discuss their beliefs on anything religious on breaks, in a quieter tone, via email or in the hall. cuz i can see everyone else roll their eyes when they profess to be experts on a certain book in the bible or prophecy received by some random prophet. for the sake of my sanity, i wish they'd stop.

**at least while we're at work, anyway**

a little quiz about my biz . . .

2009-08-14T11:20:00.006-05:00

What is your favorite flavor of Kool-Aid?
*red . . . no seriously, that's my favorite flavor. doesn't matter what color red, as long as it's red.

Do you have a wireless keyboard and mouse?
*just a wireless mouse. and only because i hate using the little mouse pad thingy on the laptop. i'm not coordinated enough to use it, to be honest.

Last sporting event you watched on tv or in person?

Who makes the best fudge?
*my mama. here is the recipe:

Mama's Fudge

3 pkg. semi-sweet chocolate chips (6 oz.)
2 c. nuts
1/2 lb. butter
2 c. miniature marshmellows (pressed down in cup)
1 tsp. vanilla
4-1/2 c. sugar
1 large can evaporated milk

Put milk and sugar in large saucepan and boil exactly 8 minutes, after
it has started boiling (be sure to reduce heat to medium and boil on medium heat). After boiling, remove from stove and add all other ingredients (put all other ingredients in one bowl first and add all at once to the milk and sugar). Mix well and put in 9x13 pan. Let it sit out until it cools down and then refrigerate. Serve after fudge has refrigerated at least an hour.

Do you like it when toothpaste bubbles in your mouth?
*i don't care if it bubbles or not, although i don't know that i'd call it bubbling, per se. isn't it more like foaming? either way, i don't care if it happens cuz i brush my teeth about 15 times a day anyway. so i know my teeth are good to go!

Do you believe that the world is gonna end at 2012?
*man i hope not . . . i have big plans for my life, none of which include dying in that year.

How many songs are on your iPod or MP3 Player?
*sadly, it depends on the iPod. i have my iPhone, which has prolly about 325 songs with more to be added soon; my night-time iPod, which has 89 songs; my buddy's iPod that i have been using, which has about 1000 songs on it; my shuffle, which has about 95 songs on it. i really just wanna get one big iPod so i can put everything on one and then sort by playlists.

Have you ever made your own survey?
*no . . . i'd rather just answer questions from someone else. i'm waiting for hayley to write one.

Can you swear inside your house?
*i can swear wherever i f&$*#@ choose to . . . but i try to limit myself anyway. typically a bad word or two will come out when i'm either really upset or when i run into something (cuz sadly, i do that a lot; so much so, that my nickname is frank, jr., cuz my dad does it more).

Do you save Bed Bath and Beyond coupons?
*nope . . . only victoria's secret and bath and body works. bed, bath and beyond is way too expensive for my blood.

Have you ever had a pet goldfish?
*nope. i once had a betta fish in college, named lil swim. my nephew would clean out it's little bowl for me weekly. when i moved home, i had to leave the fish with my ex-boyfriend (my then boyfriend) and he killed it by cleaning the bowl with AJAX.

When did you last eat waffles?
*hmm . . . the other night at mama's house. i can't remember what day it was. was that sunday dinner? no wait -- that was tuesday, i think.

What is the most overrated thing in your opinion?

Do you have a video Skype account?
*i'm not even sure what skype is.

What color is your bed comforter?
*white down comforter. but it's always pushed off onto the floor cuz it's too hot to keep on the bed!

Does being in love make you gain weight?
*no . . . eating carbs makes me gain weight.

Dumbest person you know? and why?
*i typically don't associate with dumb people, so i can't answer this.

Do your parents have home videos of you as a kid?
*yes . . . and i hope that someone will break into their house, go into my dad's walk-in closet and steal them (i'm willing to pay for that to happen).

How old is your oldest cousin?
*to be quite honest, i have no clue. i only really talk with one of my cousins, and i wanna say she's between heather's and hilary's age? i have a lot, but we just never kept up with them growing up.

If you HAD to get a tattoo, where and what would it be?

no really . . . i would. i want this tattoo. i think it's perfect. BWAHAHAHA!

Do you think Obama has tried drugs?
*remember the question above that asked what i believed was the most overrated thing? reference that and you'll realize why i am not answering this question.

What color is your bra or boxers?
*black. black goes with everything.

What is your favorite radio station?
*honestly, i'm not even sure the last time i listened to a radio. i'm all about CDs and iPods, people.

What ethnicity was your last ex?
*africanus-americanus

What brand is your refrigerator?
*hmm . . . i have no clue. i think it's like a whirlpool or something? or maybe that's my dishwasher. i didn't pick it out, so i have no idea. it's off-white.

How many people do you know that are pregnant?
*um . . . i don't know. i really don't keep up with that. i think two?

Do you have a picture with your middle finger up?
*i do . . . but typically i edit out the finger part of the picture. my mama doesn't like it.

When is the last time you went to a birthday party?
*technically, last night. ty's (my nephew) birthday is sunday, but they're going to be visiting family in washington, so we celebrated it last night with fried chicken and cheesecake.

What is the best thing to happen to you this year so far?
*getting a permanent job and meeting my beau (sappy, i know)

How long have you lived in the house you live in?
*long enough that when i move, i will cry.

Do you read a newspaper daily?
*nope. i get the sunday paper delivered. and even when i get that, i only look at weddings, birth announcements, dear abby and the crossword puzzle. the rest gets thrown away.

Anything you're really afraid of?
*live fish. they gross me out.

Do you read tabloids?
*not at all. not so big into celebrities and their screwed up lives. i have enough in my own world to worry about.

Have you ever had a really bad haircut?
*see pictures below. what do you think?

Do you like your peanut butter crunchy or creamy?
*creamy, fo' sho. but it has to be the peter pan honey-roasted creamy PB. the best ever!

What is the scariest movie you've ever seen?
*the ending of "carrie" or "signs." considering that i don't watch scary movies because everything scares the crap out of me, those were pretty bad. quit laughing now . . . all of you!

Have you ever ridden a skateboard?
*yes . . . we used to sit on it and roll down my parents' driveway. good times.

Do you drink enough water on a daily basis?
*more than enough. at least a case every three days. i pee like every hour on the hour. my mama worries that i'm going to get water intoxication.

Would you burn the American flag for a million dollars?
*i'd like to believe i wouldn't . . .

The main thing you can't leave your house without?

(sunglasses, in case you're wondering)

Do you think the economy is improving yet?
*my economy isn't. not yet. wait til i get paid and then we'll talk.

When was the last time you read a book?
*been reading a couple of different books, at different times. last book i actually finished was "i know my first name is steven." trying to read more.

Where did you get that shirt you're wearing?

Do you play pranks on April Fool's Day?
*i typically don't even remember it's april fool's day cuz it's also my niece's birthday. that takes priority over any pranks.

just some fun sunday pictures (mostly)

2009-08-14T09:01:00.011-05:00

so my beau and i went to my mama's house this past sunday for dinner, as we always do on sundays. we were there hanging out when my little brother scott, sister-in-law val and their two kiddos (jared and alexis) walked in. immediately, i noticed that leslie and jared were wearing the same outfit! it cracked us all up. i love that jared is in love with leslie. they are two peas in a pod, and i love how he says leslie's name. it's the cutest thing ever. so for your viewing pleasure, here a few shots i snapped with my iPhone of them playing and posing for pictures. i also added one of chad being "chad marley" with my ruined mop head (my daddy borrowed my mop and washed it, forgetting to turn off the spin cycle so it was ruined) and just a cute one of scott and alexis that i stole from val's page.

leslie and jared

leslie and jared sticking out their tongues

more sticking out of the tongues (this seemed to be jared's favorite pose of the night)

you can tell they're both *just thrilled* to be in pictures (and what's the deal with leslie's head looking alienesque in this pic?)

"chad marley" (i'm not sure why this picture turned out on it's side. when i checked the picture program, it was right but i can't get it to post without being sideways for some odd reason)

scott and alexis at the beach in san diego a couple of weeks ago (i love this picture cuz they both have the *same* expression on their faces!)

why is it . . .

2009-08-13T09:12:00.000-05:00

that when it rains, **it pours?**

more job stuff . . .

2009-08-07T11:53:00.002-05:00

so part of my job includes the chance that **i'll have to instruct when i'm out on a fielding.** i have no issues with instructing . . . i did some of that at my last job whenever i had to teach people about the program i worked in. today we are going to be practicing the instructing part of the job. and i'm okay with that in general; but specifically, i'm not.

see . . . i don't know the information i'm teaching like i knew the information from the last job. granted, it's basically reading slides to the "students," but **i really like to have some knowledge of what i'm teaching.** i have 3 experienced instructors in the class who will be critiquing me and offering suggestions on how to teach better, and three guys who have held different positions than the ones they hold now. in the long run, i am glad to be doing this now and getting the experience for when i'm on a real fielding. in the short run, though . . . i'm nervous.

**teaching is right after lunch, in less than an hour!**

yes she's back, back again . . .

2009-08-06T08:13:00.003-05:00

much to my chagrin.

remember me blogging awhile back about the girl i worked with at my other job who was a troublemaker? i ended up taking the post off cuz anyone can access my blog and with her craziness, **i wasn't sure if she was stalking me** or not and i didn't want there to be any further issues with her.

well, guess who popped up in my new office yesterday and is now officially working with me? yep . . . it's her. **and i am none too happy about it.** the only good thing is that she is in a position lower than me (which makes me *so* happy that i'm making more money than her, no matter how petty that is) which means she is in a different sub-office. i can handle that. but the funny thing is, when i walked into work yesterday, and she saw me, she immediately shot me a dirty look. so i smiled as big as i could and waved and said, "hey girl! so good to see you!" and then that forced her to be fake, too, and smile and say hi. we haven't spoken since.

i just hope that i never end up having to go on a fielding with her, which is actually quite possible, considering the amount of people who work here and whatnot. **she is just a troublemaker** and likes to stir pots that have no business being stirred. remind me to stay away from her and her pettiness if you ever hear me getting sucked into it. i am better than her ways.

**and if not, just remind me that i make more money!**

a rant and some amateur photography

2009-08-05T08:19:00.007-05:00

so what's going on with this website? i have been trying to post comments on this thing (in response to your comments, of course) and i can't post anything. then my buddy kevin sent me an email saying he couldn't post comments, either. does anyone know how to change that? then when i tried to change my boring background, it messed up and had some of the new background mixed in with this background. you would think i would know all this seeing that i work with computers **on a daily basis,** but i have no clue what's going on! i might have to task this out to someone who is more computer savvy than i am, cuz my knowledge just ain't cutting it.

in other news, i have been inspired. my sister and hayley have been my primary inspirations, but vanessa is up there, also. i have had a digital camera for forever and i have rarely taken pictures, and when i have, **they're always just boring shots.** i noticed that my sister and hayley always alter their photos to make them . . . make them, well better isn't the word. perhaps more interesting? either way, i have been playing around with pictures, mostly on photobucket, and this is what i've come up with. work with me here, people . . . remember that i've only just begun!

leslie and jared, playing with cars:

before

after

veronica and i getting ready to go out to dinner with our beaus:

before

after

colby and daddy, riding the electric wheelchair at walmart:

before

after

so there are my pictures. prolly not that original, but i have to say that i did work hard on them! i am still learning and waiting to make some money so i can get the photoshop program. my beau thought he had it, but come to find out, he doesn't. does anyone else have it? if so, would you recommend it? just curious.

anyhow, it's time for me to actually do some work and get to studying. hopefully i can stay awake today.

**yesterday i fell asleep standing up. twice.**

just an observation . . .

2009-08-04T12:51:00.002-05:00

so for this job of mine, i am in some intensive training. training where things go up on the wall from a projector and we write. which is actually fine with me, cuz i tend to learn things better when i write them down. i also have copies of slides that i can look at on the computer, but **i like to take notes** when the instructor teaches.

my hand cramps up a lot while writing. not complaining, just find it interesting. it's prolly cuz i haven't written -- well, handwritten -- anything in ages. not much more than "happy birthday" on a card or something like that. here at work, i am writing a novel. it's funny how much **technology has taken over our lives.** we type all day in emails, we text instead of calling, we push a button to listen to music, rather than playing an instrument. there are so many parts of our lives where technology has come into play and dominated.

and sadly, i can't say that i miss the "good old days" of snail mail and telephone calls. i like that everything seems to move in fast forward nowadays.

well, everything but the night **(i need more sleep).**

dr jekyll and ms hyde

2009-07-31T08:10:00.003-05:00

i have never been one of those girls to use smiley faces after every sentence or dot my Is with hearts or stars. i guess it's the tomboy in me that has always prevented me from being too girly, "too cool" for unicorns, barbie, doodles and dresses. i was more into football (or any sport, for that matter), gi joes, cars and ninja turtles. **if a boy could do it, i could do it better.** nobody was going to convince me of anything differently.

it's funny how we when we grow-up to become functioning adults of society, we mostly stay the same as we were at 5 years old, but add little tweaks here and there. i am sitting in my office today in a skirt and a girly sweater. i feel out of place in it; **i feel like i am a fraud.** i'm used to jeans, tees, sweats, workout clothes, flip flops or running shoes. instead, i'm running around in grown-up clothes, pretending that this is normal attire for me. my co-workers know no different, either. they've only seen me in these clothes. and it makes me wonder if they think i look "normal" in them, or can they sense my discomfort? it's not that i think i look ridiculous in them; it's just that i'm not used to them.

i have always disliked wearing dresses. i remember being in the second or third grade and it was picture day at the school. my mama really wanted me to wear a dress for the picture, but there was NO WAY she was going to get me to wear a dress to school. so when it was time for pictures, my mama showed up at the school, dress in hand. i even remember the dress . . . purple flowery thing with white lace somewhere on the dress. she tells me to go into the bathroom, put on the dress and to give her my other clothes. i did, and only after taking my picture, did i realize **my mama had left me and taken the shorts and tee i had on before with her.** i had to wear the dress for the rest of the day. even though it was only for an hour or so, i remember crying -- sobbing, if you will -- that i had to wear that dress for the rest of the day. (she will prolly deny this story, but a little girl who was a tomboy could never forget something as traumatizing as having to wear a dress for the rest of the school day!)

and yet here i sit in this office, legs crossed at the ankles cuz nowadays i'm too old to put on a pair of shorts under my skirt like my 6 year old niece does. i am now ladylike. i am in frilly skirt and ruffly shirt, makeup perfectly plastered on my typically natural face. i am polite, funny, somewhat aloof. i smile when appropriate, and pay attention in class, back straight, hands folded in my lap. **ever the lady.** and it makes me realize that i don't think i would ever wanna do this fulltime.

quite honestly, it makes me appreciate the weekends, when i can roll out of bed, through on a pair of shorts or sweats or whatever the day feels like, with a tank or shirt that sometimes matches, sometimes doesn't. and my shoes don't have to be heels or cute or girly. they can be flip-flops or those running shoes. and i can shave my legs if i want to, or skip it if i don't wanna. and i can throw on a baseball cap or put my hair up in a messy ponytail and not care. **and i can be loud and obnoxious and say inappropriate things at inappropriate times and not feel bad.** i can be the tomboy that i have always been; i can be comfortable in my own skin.

but when monday morning rolls around, i get out of bed, put on my skirt or my pressed slacks, my button-up or girly sweater, my heels and **i pretend all over again.** and my co-workers have no clue that the night before, i was at my mama's house dressed in mismatched clothing, being my true self: laughing loud, talking louder, being obnoxious.

**and i think i like it that way.**

jobs, school and clothes

2009-07-30T11:04:00.003-05:00

so i guess i haven't really written anything on here in quite awhile, so i thought i'd update this thing while i'm sitting here at work, doing a whole lot of nothing. it's kind of a chill day here today because half of my co-workers are leaving for el paso on monday. everyone is just kind of visiting and hanging out because those who are leaving have the day off tomorrow **and get paid for it.**

so as everyone knows, i started my job this past monday. i feel like a complete idiot and i'm not entirely sure i am even qualified for this position. however, i typically catch onto things rather quickly, so i'm hoping that **all of this will click at some point** and i will just get it. i am going to go out into the main office today to study and to try to get a bit of help from my supervisor since he has been working with this program for at least 3 years. he is one of the co-workers who leaves on monday, so that kind of sucks. he is full of knowledge on this system and he's also one of the only people who talk with me here. i must say that i find that awfully peculiar -- or perhaps i should say typical -- because i work with a lot of women. women don't like me. and none of them here talk to me. i say "good morning" to all of them each day, and they all mumble the same back to me, and look at me with a look of contempt. i don't know what that is all about, but i just try to ignore their callousness and have a good day. whatever, right?

in other news, my beau lost his job :( he was hired and three days later they put him and the other new guy in the academy to work on the same program that i am working on. he had to take a certification exam at the end of the class and failed the exam by one point. when i spoke to my supervisor about it, he said that **one and a half weeks in an academy to learn this entire program is not enough time to learn it** and that he didn't feel it was fair to either of the new guys that they were let go. that made me feel a bit better about everything and i relayed the message to my beau.

he and i have been talking for awhile about the both of us **getting back into school and finishing up our degrees.** now that he is unemployed, he and i discussed him going back and we feel like that is a good decision. he registered at CTC yesterday and is getting his stuff together for classes. the GI Bill will pay for his schooling because he served in the marines, and they will also be paying extra because he was in the armed forces on or after 9/11. i am really excited for him to get back in it and get going. he has big plans, and i know he will reach all his goals.

funny thing i have figured out about work and the business attire: a woman can pair ANY shirt she wants -- t-shirt, tank, halter, etc. -- with a blazer, nice pants / skirt and heels, and call it "business casual." **i am in love with that policy.** today i am wearing a somewhat dressy t-shirt, but to be honest . . . it's a t-shirt. has a little flower on it in the front with a scoop neck. paired it with a white blazer, blue pants and camel boots. everyone has told me how great i look today. i think that that is awesome.

**time for lunch, though.** maybe i'll write more later this afternoon.

monday, monday, monday!

2009-07-22T15:05:00.002-05:00

that is the day i start my job. i'm so excited:

**means i get to go shopping (who cares if it's for business attire clothes! it's shopping and i haven't been able to go in MONTHS!)**

"the boy in the striped pajamas"

2009-07-20T14:01:00.002-05:00

has anyone else seen this? watching it now.

**heartbreaking**

you're all a bunch of snollygosters!

2009-07-19T15:53:00.002-05:00

**SUNDAY**

i watched a show today that i had DVR'd from some random channel called "the joy of lex." obviously, it was about words: their origins, how they become "official" and how they die. i must admit that i was highly intrigued. it made me think about words and their sounds and how much i love them. i don't write much anymore, but when i was in college, my major was actually english with an emphasis in creative writing, moreso poetry than anything else. **i used to write a lot, all the time.** i love everything about it. i haven't done it in a long time. i wish i had the enthusiam about it now that i had then. maybe if i was being graded still, i'd write more. we'll see. maybe i'll start writing more. who knows. but that show is where i got the word "snollygoster" from . . . i'm not even sure it's in the dictionary anymore. however, i won't tell the meaning and i'll let you all google it to find out the meaning, if you already don't know.

in other news, i said that i'd write about the job, so i guess i better do that. i interviewed last monday with a company called MTCI. i know a guy who works there and i sent him my resume; he, in turn, passed it on to the recruiters and i got a call monday morning at 9am to come in for an 11am interview. i hurridly went out to leslie's house to get an outfit for the interview and headed home to iron it. of course it was linen so it didn't iron well, but it looked good enough. i made it to the interview with 15 minutes to spare. i even beat the guy who was interviewing me to the office.

the interview went *very* well . . . he was incredibly impressed with my resume and basically told me i had the job, although he had two other people to interview. he said i'd "definitely" hear from him. so fast forward to **friday afternoon and i still haven't heard from the guy.** i started to lose hope at that point, convinced i wasn't getting the job. however, due to the urging of many people, i called and he apologized for not calling sooner. he told me i had the job, but that he didn't have a start date for me, so he was waiting to call. SOOO relieved. i am very excited and can't wait to start working! especially for those benefits :)

**MONDAY**

in other sad, devastating news. my neighbor and i have been having a mini-feud for the past couple of years. she is like 93 and a pain in the ass (pardon my french). anyway, i have always had a chainlink fence in my backyard and she went ahead and built a cedar privacy fence about 6 inches away from the chainlink. since i have lived here, there have been trees growing between the chainlink and privacy fence. she insists they're my responsibility, because when my brother-in-law lived here with my sister, he would cut the trees back for her **out of the kindness of his heart.** i got my lawn guy to agree to come in a year or two ago to cut the trees down but that he'd have to go into her backyard and remove some of the cedar planks from her fence to do it. she disagreed and they were never cut down. after that, things were prickly between us for awhile until one day they just weren't and she was speaking to me again, although clipped and in short sentences.

fast forward to this last friday. she leaves a note on my burglar bars saying she has found someone to cut down the trees, but that she will need to have them come into my backyard. i didn't want her to cut down the trees -- even though they are hers -- cuz **they provide amazing shade in the backyard** and it's a wall of green on the one side of my yard. it's very pretty. i reluctantly agreed, however, because i didn't want there to be animosity between us anymore. now i am regretting it. the green is slowly being replaced by her ugly cedar fence and the shade is disappating. i stood outside for a bit in my backyard to oversee the project and to make sure they weren't going to cut down my fig tree or any trees on my side of the fence.

[side note: the guy cutting the trees made some snotty remarks to hazel about me coming out earlier and acting as if the trees were mine (my roommate and i were listening to him talk about me through my bedroom window). so i had to get dressed to correct his remarks to hazel. i mean, really, they ARE her trees . . . there isn't much i can do aside from tell them they can't come into my backyard, and that would just make it more difficult for them but they'd get the trees down, so i viewed that as pointless. **i just wanted them to leave my trees alone.**]

hazel comes over to me as i'm standing at my fence watching and she begins to tell me how much easier it will be for me now to care for my lawn, how the trees were ruining her fence, blahblahblah. i admit that i am bitter. i may even be overreacting a bit, but whatever. those trees have been there forever and they look nice.

**old people suck.**

good news . . .

2009-07-18T01:19:00.002-05:00

i got the job! more to follow tomorrow. or the next day.

**or whenever i feel like writing**

the butcher and candlestick maker . . . what about the third?

2009-07-16T18:23:00.001-05:00

i'm going to some friends' house tonight for dinner with my beau. we're going to watch a movie while there. i was asked to bring "something sweet" for dessert. i decided to bake cookies. i might have burned them a bit.

**a baker i am not.**

oh to be independently wealthy!

2009-07-15T16:41:00.004-05:00

so **i have interviewed for two jobs in the past three days.** that is very exciting news, considering i haven't had any interview in the past, um, who knows how many weeks! i am fairly confident i will be receiving a call from at least one of them, and i really hope it's for the one i want! so until then, everyone keep your fingers crossed, knock on wood and all that other superstitious crap people do, okay?

i realized when i was getting ready for the interviews that **i really have no interview clothing** to wear. step in my best friend, leslie, and clothes she bought ages ago for interviews she never went on. i had stopped out at her place last week to see her, mags and little sophie and happened to mention the interviews i was supposed to go on this week and how i had no clothes for them between talking about whatever it is we were talking about. she disappeared to her bedroom and popped back out with a brown linen suit (which, by the way, is a horrible thing to iron but so cute when worn) and a cute white blazer (which, by the way, i never wore to the interview cuz it needed to be dry-cleaned and i never got around to dropping it off there). of course, we started talking again and i left and forgot the clothes. ended up having to race to her house monday morning to get them for the interview at 11am, that was set-up that morning at 9am. gotta love the organizational skills of that one . . . i just hope that's not indicative of how the job will be, seeing that that interview was with the company i really wanna work for.

during said interview, i was informed that the dress code would be "business casual," although i was already quite aware of that because my beau works on the same contract, albeit with a different company. going through my closet that night, i realized that i have absolutely no business casual attire. no polos, no button-ups that really fit, nada. the thing is, i hate wearing button-up shirts in the first place. **button-ups belong on men or lesbians,** both of which i am not. not sure when i started thinking they belonged on lesbians, but it prolly happened around the time i worked at olive garden and was forced to wear black slacks, white button-up shirt, tie, and my hair pulled back. every time i looked in the mirror when i wore that uniform, i swear there was a man staring back at me. and ever since then, it has been a difficult thing for me to wear button-up shirts. i realize i do own a few, but those, or any new ones, will definitely not be going into my business casual attire. not unless there are frills or ruffles, so that i can feel more like a woman and less like a man (even though, admittedly, i am not sure i would be comfortable in frills and ruffles). all i know is, i am going to have go to shopping at some point soon after i get hired.

on a somewhat unrelated note, i have been unsuccessful in convincing myself to go back to the gym. oh how i have tried to tell myself it's time to get up and go at 630am when my beau leaves for work, but honestly, i'm not getting up that early for anything unless i'm getting paid to! and so i always roll over, turn off any alarms and go right back to sleep. until i wake up, whenever that may be. typically, it's mid-afternoon and i convince myself i have things to do, errands to run or people to see and so i must pass up the gym. i think back to how i used to get up EVERY morning at 5am, come hell or high water, and trek the 20 minutes one way to the gym, work out for a good two hours, come home, shower, change and go to work. and then go back for another two hours in the afternoon after work. what was i thinking?!?! actually, i know that i looked better then and that i was happier with myself then. but for the life of me, i cannot convince myself that that is a good idea for me to do anymore. i just come up with excuses. i am hoping that once i start working again (whenever that will be), i will get back into some sort of routine and head straight to the gym after work. until then, **i am going to stop lying to myself** and everyone else and face the fact that right now, the gym and i are no longer friends. we might reconcile one day, but today is not that day. happy? i know i am.

one thing i am looking forward to about this job i really want and hope i get, is the benefits! it has been so long since i had a job that offered REAL benefits. granted, they only pay 80% of medical, but that is better than nothing! i will also get full dental (which is awesome cuz i have that blasted cavity i still have to get filled and then maybe i can get braces on my bottom teeth again to fix that one tooth that is out of line (yes, i'm OCD about my teeth)) and have the option of enrolling in a 401k (which is awesome and or course i'm doing). i am so excited about said benefits -- medical, mostly -- cuz i have been sick recently. not sure what is going on, but every single time i eat ANYTHING, i get sick. and i mean S-I-C-K. spending hours in the bathroom, not sure if i'm going to puke or let it come out the other end (sorry for being somewhat mildly graphic there, but i needed you all to get the point). and this happens in the middle of the night sometimes, hours after i've eaten, for hours at a time. i get the chills, i feel dizzy, and i am in agonizing pain. my mama thinks that it might possibly be an ulcer and / or stress-induced, and i'm inclined to believe her at this point. **not having a steady income and bills piling up has put an undo amount of stress on me lately.** i'm now just waiting to puke up blood before i pay out of pocket to see the doctor. hoping i get hired very quickly so i can go and have tests run or whatever it is that they are going to do. heaven knows i'd like one night of uninterrupted sleep!

what else, what else. oh . . . **i am selling a brand new 8x external DVD-RW from dell.** my beau needed to get a new laptop before heading to kuwait for a year because his is, well, a piece of crap. continuously freezing, shutting itself down, running slower than whatever runs slow in the first place. so we signed up for a dell account to get the computer for him. i needed an external DVD drive for my computer since i have this little tiny laptop and it doesn't have one. dell had their drives on sale, so i added that to the cart, along with a messenger bag for the laptop and an external hard drive, to put all my music on. somehow everything was shipped twice and i was charged twice on my card. when i called today to find out about returning everything (excluding the extra hard drive cuz my beau is keeping that for his new laptop so that he can have movies and music for his year in kuwait), the guy offered me a $40 credit on my account if i kept all the other stuff. the bag is really cute -- red and black -- and would be perfect for things other than a 9" screen laptop (so i am selling the second one of those, too) and the DVD-RW is still in the box. i paid $89 for it and am asking $60. so keep that in mind if you know anyone who might want it. and i am even willing to ship it to whomever buys it (keep that in mind, john and hayley). otherwise, ask around and see if you know anyone who wants either the bag or the DVD thing. i can provide pictures, should you want them. i'd post them now, however i haven't taken any and i'm being lazy and totally laying on the couch as i write this. so there.

can't think of anything else to write, really. i might try to take a quick power nap since last night was one of those nights where i was up sick for hours and i really didn't sleep well. once my beau gets home, we're going to dinner at mama's and then swimming afterwards:

**i sure hope that the water stays warm!**

a day in the life . . .

2009-07-07T16:08:00.002-05:00

**being sick sucks.**

i have had some sort of stomach flu for the past two days. it started sunday evening and i am still feeling it today. i am very bored since i can't be away from a toilet for more than 10 minutes at a time. i have been mostly laying around the house and **doing a whole lot of nothing.** i managed to water the back lawn today and i'm going to venture into the kitchen to make chili in a minute, if i have all the ingredients. if not, my beau will just have to have turkey salad or something for dinner. i feel like i should have dinner on the table since he is at work everyday.

and speaking of work . . . he is thoroughly enjoying his new job. he says that the people are all very nice and that they have all the cokes someone could want to drink **for free.** he assures me, however, that he is not drinking any of them. we are supposed to be eating very healthy and not having coke **although i admit i've had a lot of sprite over the last couple of days due to my illness** and going to the gym. so far, i've accomplished a bit of the healthy eating. but i guess that is veering off subject. so back to his job. so his supervisor (also the guy who hired him) told him that one of the girls they have working in kuwait is prolly going to be quitting in the next week or so. she is in kuwait right now and is miserable. she is due home for her r&r next week and he doesn't believe she will be back.

**enter my resume**

my beau's supervisor told him that i am the top candidate being considered for her position, should she quit. he had already looked over my resume and apparently everyone there is pretty impressed with my "skills" and computer knowledge. i am hoping that she quits, as horrible as that sounds. i am looking forward to going back to work and the money to be made in kuwait is just ridiculous. so everyone cross your fingers and hope that i get that job!

i guess it's time for me to throw something together for dinner. if it's chili, it will take a couple of hours to cook. i still don't know if i have everything, but if i don't, maybe i can convince my mama or heather to run to the store for me. **heaven knows i hate using public restrooms.**

drains, lemon tarts and jobs

2009-07-05T19:35:00.002-05:00

so my beau and i have been doing some stuff around the house to clean and whatnot. my roommate also helps me a lot, too. but last night, when i was getting ready to get out of the shower, i looked down and decided it was time to clean out the drain. i got all the hair off the top of it, which honestly wasn't that much cuz i clean it frequently. however, i couldn't get down under the drain cuz there are no screws holding the drain in and i have tried to pull it off several times, to no avail.

step in my white knight.

he got a pair of old tweezers and popped the drain off. i won't proceed to tell you all what nastiness existed below the surface, but i will say that it was grody enough for me to leave the bathroom so i wouldn't puke! i guess it's cuz i used to have a recurring dream a few years back in which **someone would force me to eat the hair and gunk**from the drain. now, i can't look at it without thinking about that dream and making myself wanna puke everywhere.

okay . . . now that i blogged about that dithguthing topic, i will blog about another: iced lemon pound cake from starbucks.

this used to be my **favorite**snack EVER. even though it has like 86 carbs PER SLICE, i used to get it every week, on either saturday or sunday. my beau and i went to get an iced passion lemonade today from there and he really wanted a treat. so he ordered that. i took a bite and it was awful. the cake is super dry and the frosting on it is like confectioner's (is that the word i'm looking for?) icing . . . sugar and water. it's pretty horrible. my suggestion if you're there and looking for something sweet and lemony? the lemon tart. almost perfection.

and another side note: **my beau starts his new job tomorrow.** we are both pretty excited about this, although i admit i will prolly spend most of the day bored out of my mind since he'll be gone. i'm hoping (and cross your fingers here) to start up at the gym hardcore tomorrow. we'll see how that goes. heaven knows i was just looking at some pictures of me at the lake on july 3rd and i need to lose a few pounds!

once again **wish me luck!**

the third and fourth

2009-07-04T18:52:00.008-05:00

yesterday was a good day. heidi's family is here from arkansas and we all decided to go down to inks lake state park. her family, mama and daddy, me and my beau, scott and val all loaded up and we headed that way. heidi grabbed some chicken from walmart as well as some chips and drinks. we had an informal picnic and played games. jacob even beat me in scrabble! it was a bit hot, though, and i never swim in lake water, so we left pretty quickly. stayed about two hours before we rolled out. everyone followed shortly afterwards. we came back to the house and i brought some movies i rented for the kids. had i known that "hotel for dogs" and "high school musical 3" were going to be so bad, i would've left them at the redbox! i also rented "spiderwick chronicles" but they haven't watched that yet. maybe tomorrow after church.

today has been pretty . . . good, i guess. i slept in really late and then headed to mama's house for the festivities. we had a family barbecue at 2pm and ate *tons* of good food. everyone went swimming after and then headed onto fort hood for fireworks. i opted not to go, though . . . too hot and too crowded. so basically, we're sitting at mama's house while mostly everyone else is gone. chad and scott are here with a couple of their friends. honestly, i'm kind of waiting for them to leave so that my beau and i can go swimming. we'll see how long that takes.

anyhow . . . i am posting some pics of our time at the lake yesterday. enjoy and happy fourth to everyone!

woohoo!

2009-07-01T13:01:00.002-05:00

**good news** on the job front . . . well for my beau, not me! but we're happy that he has finally gotten and accepted a job over in kuwait, working with a company called mclane advanced technologies. his job starts monday in temple. he will complete 10 days of training for his job here in temple, then will head to fort benning, georgia for more extensive training and then go to kuwait from there. i am thinking of joining him in georgia for a bit, but that all depends on the money situation.

i am also supposedly being considered for a job in kuwait with mclane, too. i am happy for that. the pay is ridiculously good over there and that would help me out tremendously. i would be able to **get completely out of debt** in less than a year and buy a car with cash. by two years, if i decided to keep that job, i would be able to put half down (at least) on my house. so everyone keep their fingers crossed for me. they told me i should hear by next month since they are only alloted a certain amount of positions per month. hoping **just hoping** that i get a call from them.

not much going on today at the moment. just hanging out at mama's house with all of the kids. **we're getting ready to BBQ** some hotdogs, fish and chicken for lunch. hotdogs will be for the kids, of course. chicken and fish are for the adults and perhaps the older kids. glad i don't have to eat the hotdogs . . . they are dithguthting! tonight, i'm heading to austin to see maxwell in concert with my beau. he surprised me last night with tickets to the show, and i am super excited.

anyhow, gotta run. kids are starving and **so am i!**

monday, monday

2009-06-22T10:35:00.002-05:00

so i realized that without a job (or a life, for that matter) **i really have nothing to write about.** my days consist of sleeping in super retardedly late, getting up and maybe going to the gym and maybe going tanning, heading back to my house, sitting around until it's time for bed, and then going to bed to wake up late and do it all again. throw in some visits with family and friends in there and you have my typical week.

i have been searching for a job just about every single day since i haven't had one. i have tried to keep my focus in the military contracting companies because a) they seem to pay the best; b) i have experience in it; and c) i actually do enjoy it for the most part. i have applied for just about every military contracting company i can think of. **i have had a couple of interviews but nothing promising.** i have even applied overseas and in other parts of the country. nothing. i guess i should really hunker down now and expand my options.

my beau got a job working in beaumont, texas for 6 weeks on a TDY job there. he left last night at about 11pm and got there this morning at 430am. he sat in on orientation and then called me. the recruiter who hired him told him that it was $19 / hour and that hotel accomodations were taken care of. he gets there and the guy doing the new hire orientation tells him that it's actually only $9 / hour up until the first 40 hours and then only time and a half. AND they're not paying for the hotel. **i told him to come home.** he wouldn't be making any money out there cuz the guy also told him that there is no guarantee that they'd make over 40 hours in a week. and it's not like it's a desk job. **it's manual labor, people.** he'd be putting armor on MRAP vehicles. that's no easy task. he's coming home as we speak and we're going to look into a couple of different options. wish us luck!

in other news, which has nothing to do with jobs, i mowed my front and back lawn yesterday and used the edger on it. the big deal? **it is the first lawn i've ever mowed in my entire life.** growing up, the yardwork was always the boys' job. the girls worked inside the house. so i never had to do it then. after i moved out, i primarily lived in apartments and when i moved in this house, i hired a lawn service. however, since i can't really afford to pay for frivolous things right now, i have decided to become more self-sufficient. i think it looks pretty good, to be honest. i felt majorly accomplished after i was done. i would post pictures, but honestly, i didn't take any. maybe i'll do that today and add them in.

anyhow, not much else going on. just going to look online now and try to see if there are any leads for a job. cross your fingers and say some prayers for my beau and i.

**things are getting a bit desperate and i don't like feeling that way.**

those lazy, hazy, crazy days . . .

2009-06-12T17:28:00.004-05:00

oh how **i lauve the summer** . . . like i completely relish in the hot days with nothing to do. and of course, i have absolutely nothing to do cuz i have no job still. but i have been to several interviews and put out about 50 resumes, so i'm hoping that something comes up soon. but that's a different rant. this one is about summer.

having a little BBQ tonight. my good friends, sKaren and jamie, are coming over to cookout with me and my beau. i think we're going to do some steak. bake some potatoes, steam some broccoli, cut up some fresh fruit. we'll eat at the new dining room table and leave the hockey game on **on mute** in the background for them to watch and enjoy. might have a glass of sangria and watch the sun go down. afterwards, we're going to see a live band play and dance with some friends. i am looking forward to it.

there's a **sexiness that comes with summer.** i'm not sure why it only happens in the summer, but maybe it's cuz people are happier in the summer. showing a bit more skin, laughing more, relaxed more. i am looking forward to the rest of it.

**i am planning on this being my best summer yet . . . **

what a lazy day!

2009-06-09T19:52:00.003-05:00

today was filled with a bunch of **nothing.** i had big plans. gym, cleaning, yardwork, rearranging, organizing. **big big big plans.** instead, i ended up laying on the couch for most of the day watching television or playing that dang video game.

we headed to the gym this morning only to realize that after the 20-minute drive to the gate to get on post to workout, i had left my purse **and driver's license** on the entryway table at my house . . . so no workout. came home, my beau did the yard and i made breakfast. ran a few errands after that, did minimal helping on the lawn, laid on the couch. we're supposed to go walking after dinner tonight, but we'll see how that goes. was really pumped for the gym today, so i'm disappointed we didn't go. but **we will go tomorrow** for sure!

we're planning a trip to florida in july, if all works out. i really wanna lose at least ten pounds **twenty would be nice, but we'll see** before i have to get into a swimsuit. i am not a huge fan of the tankini i have now, but i can't justify buying a new one if i don't lose weight. so that's **added** motivation. we're going to see my oldest friend, erin, when we go down that way. apparently there is also a waterpark open down there that she wants to go to, so we'll get that in, also. don't worry hayley -- we also want to plan a trip that way soon, but choosing between utah and the beach? well . . . the beach won!

cooking some dinner now. third meal i've prepared today. been eating fairly healthy, so i'm proud of myself. cream of wheat and berries for breakfast, salad for lunch, cheese cubes for a snack. now cooking a turkey tenderloin, broccoli and salad for dinner. prolly some sort of fruit for dessert, if needed. and i am very proud of myself . . . mama called me tonight about some leftover pie from my birthday, and as hard as it was to say no . . . i did! **i really wanted to say yes,** but since we didn't hit the gym today, i really couldn't justify it!

anyhow, the turkey smells good, the broccoli is steaming and the salad is prepared. gonna do some of that cleaning and rearranging after dinner tonight.

**that is, if i'm not kicking my beau's booty in that blasted video game.**

page layout

2009-06-05T00:44:00.002-05:00

so i really want a new blog page layout design, but i have no idea where to find any or how to do this thing aside from using the blogspot templates. help?

it's an obsession . . .

2009-06-03T22:13:00.002-05:00

so i have this new obsession. it's called the XBox. more specifically, it's called:

**mortal kombat vs. dc comics**

or something along those lines. and while i admit that i have never been a big fan of video games before **excluding 1080 on the nintendo 64, which is still my favorite game to this day** i am currently obsessed with the aforementioned game. blame it on my beau.

he hooked up the said console to our brand new 46-inch LCD samsung flat screen TV and suddenly all the colors that were so bland and grainy on my crappy no-name-brand 27-inch box of a television were all so **vivid and pretty.** i could reach out and grab wonder woman's lasso and deathstroke's sword (and really, with a name like deathstroke, he's just begging for trouble). it was amazing how much better game graphics are (and regular television shows, i might add) on this monstrosity. and it was quite sad how quickly i fell in love with the television. and game.

**and scorpion.**

he's my chosen character. i am pretty good with him. decent on sonya, subpar on darkseid. something about scorpion gets my blood boiling, my adrenaline pumping, my talkin' a bit more of mess. as my fingers so ungracefully maneuver that little fake man around my screen kickin' booty and my mouth cries out his words of "get over here!" i realize **i am nothing short of heaven.**

apparently, i need not only a job. i need a life.

**(but in the meantime, i'm shutting this off and getting back to some booty-whoopins!)**

ramblings on a wednesday . . .

2009-06-03T09:48:00.002-05:00

so in a few days, i will be turning 29. and it's made me reflect and think on things. i remember when i was like 16 . . . i made a list of things i wanted to have accomplished by the age of 25. consequently, i haven't accomplished any of those things: publish a book, have my master's degree, have my second book at least halfway written, travel to 25 different countries (one country for each year of my life), own a house and a car, have a dog and a man. as i looked over my list, i realized that what i wanted at 16 really isn't what i want now. sure, it would've been nice to have published two books, but i'm glad i don't have things like a dog tying me down. haha! but really, it made me take stock in things in my life and be thankful for what i do have:

**a loving family who accepts me and loves me for me. i never feel that i have to change or be someone different. even with all of my disappointments and issues, i know that i am always accepted as me.

**my gramma's house. granted, it's not mine. it is my parents' house. but i am fortunate that i'm able to live in it with a great roommate for next to nothing. my parents are understanding and we'll just leave it at that.

**friends. friends who also accept me for me and never judge. they offer opinions and advice, but in the end, they know i'll do what i want and love me for it anyway.

**starbucks. i am glad that i can go to the drive-thru every morning and order my complicated latte and i don't even have to say what i want; i just pull up, tell them it's me, and they know exactly what i want. it's nice.

**nieces and nephews. even though they're included in my family, there is something about those kids that just make me smile. everyone who knows me knows i have an aversion to kids. but when it comes to my nieces and nephews . . . that's a different story. they all get what they want from me. in terms of gifts or time. i love spending time with them and they can all make me smile. i will admit, however, that i'm glad i can send them home when i'm done with them!

**my beau. even though it's still early on in the relationship, he is the man i have always wanted to date. he is generous, kind, trustworthy, loyal, smart, fun, exciting, interesting . . . and the list goes on. he is so helpful and only wants the best for me. he considers my family his own and i am pretty sure that everyone who has met him in my family simply adores him. he is a hard-worker and has become my daddy's right hand man. as we speak, he's laboring away in the hot sun, getting the pool ready for swimming. when i asked if i could help him, he told me i'd "just get in the way," and to go inside. really i know it's because he likes to take care of me. and for once in my life, i am liking being taken care of.

**my independence. even though i am now officially "in a relationship," i am glad that i can still come and go as i please, without having to seek anyone's permission. i am happy that i can afford to pay my bills (most of the time -- thanks mama and daddy, when i can't!) and can do adult things without being scared. i like that i am okay with being alone, but that i'm not alone. i know that, in the end, if things don't end up working out between my beau and me, that i will be okay (but let's all hope that doesn't happen).

**the gym. even though i haven't worked out in months, i love that i have the option to go. one day i will be motivated again, and i will workout. i love the gym and i do love working out. sometimes it's just hard getting motivated. but i am glad that when i go back, nothing or no one judges me there. they just welcome me back and hope to see me again tomorrow. i like that.

**second chances. many times in my life, i have screwed up. but it's nice to know that everyone in my life values me enough to give me another chance. i sometimes say mean things, or do dumb things, but never mean enough or dumb enough that i can't apologize and get a second chance . . . or third . . . or fourth. i am one lucky gal.

i was thinking about what i wanted to have accomplished by the time i was 30, and i realize that no matter what material things i accomplish, in the end i just want to be happy and successful. i am happy and i'm still working on the successful part, but no matter what happens, i know i will be okay. and even if i don't accomplish my success by the age of 30, i can always push it to 35!

and another reason my beau is the best . . .

2009-06-02T23:48:00.002-05:00

he just hung curtains in my bedroom. for 3 1/2 years, i've had mismatching sheets over my windows . . . one dark blue, one green and white checked. now i have red curtains that look fabulous (pictures to be posted soon, once i get a photo-editing program).

**and he's fabulous!**

life and times . . .

2009-06-02T19:30:00.005-05:00

so first i owe my apologies to my loyal, faithful blog readers . . . **all two of you.** i haven't written at all lately and once again, as i've said a hundred million times before, i have no excuse. i have been lazy: sleeping in late, watching television, hanging out with my family, etc. nothing really to keep me from writing. cuz once again:

**i have no job**

i have interviewed for several jobs with the company that laid me off recently: no luck. i am not exactly sure why i haven't gotten picked up and to be honest, **i'm overly irritated about it but happy at the same time.** i really don't wanna work for that company again, seeing that they lay people off with no regards to how well they do a job or anything like that. but unfortunately, i don't have many leads or options right now. unemployment doesn't pay nearly enough to live on, so i am actually considering going back to bartending. as a last resort, of course. but i am really hoping that i find something. my beau and i have applied everywhere we could think of, short of fast food joints. maybe i'm being uppity for saying this, but quite frankly, **i'm too good to work at a fast food place.** i have too many skills, too much going for me to flip burgers. we've applied overseas, underseas, by the seas . . . anywhere you can pretty much think of. and still no luck. oh wait! i forgot i do have a job. i work veryveryvery part-time at barnes & noble. one day a week here and there. i picked up a friday shift this week that i'm pretty excited about . . . that should be like $20 deposited into my account next friday! i just can't figure out why it's so hard to find something when i possess skills.

on a lighter, much happier note. my beau and i are doing great! i feel like i'm constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, but so far, it hasn't. he makes me laugh, he makes me happy, he makes me feel wanted. he even sometimes buys me things, which is nice (i admit). like this little tiny laptop i'm typing on now . . . yes, a tiny laptop. it is ridiculously cute and fun (note: i tried to post pictures but of course my new computer doesn't come with the photo program i am used to, so i have to download that; will post pics later). i am **in lauve** (with the computer). we also bought some new furniture for my house and i am excited about that. a bedroom set, a 46-inch flatscreen tv (for him, not me), dining room table, barstools. scared to say it, but i think i could see myself building a future with him. he makes me **extremely** happy . . . and not because he buys me things. a sense of humor is key . . . and i find myself always laughing. and better? i find myself smiling at random times for no reason at all. each time? i am thinking of him. **call it sappy . . . call it what you will.** i don't care; it's taken a long time for me to be this happy and i will gush about it all day long!

i went down to college station a couple of weekends ago with my beau to visit my old college friend, veronica. not sure why i haven't been down there since 2005-ish time frame, but i haven't. consequently, i fell in love with college station all over again. and so did my beau. we had a great time with veronica and we're already planning a trip back down there. her man really liked my beau and vice-versa, so **i am happy for that.** it's always better when everyone gets along.

can't really think about anything else to talk about. life is pretty boring right now. maybe i'll start writing again, now that i have this little computer to take places with me. we'll see . . .

**i'll make no promises.**

oh the drama!

2009-05-17T23:12:00.002-05:00

so i realize that i have been neglecting my blog for about two weeks now. again, i can only use the excuse that **i no longer have a job** and am therefore rarely on my computer. granted, i now have an iPhone, so i actually have this blog at my fingertips, but i **really** hate typing on that phone. my fingers are too fat and i'm constantly missing the buttons on the touchscreen when i'm trying to type, so words end up looking like jibberish or misspelled russian vocabulary. and so, as i am bored and waiting on a phone call from **my man,** i will type.

[note: the letter I on this keyboard is shifty and i'm having to press it extra hard; therefore, some words that are supposed to have an I just may be missng it (like that word, which i purposefully didn't correct to prove my point). so place the I were it goes and get over it.]

so i dd say "my man" in the frst paragraph. i am hesitant to mention too much about hm because i really am **scared of jinxng the situation** before i'm entirely sure about it. what i can tell you is that i am **extremely** happy wth him and that he treats me better than anyone else i've ever dated. not only that, **my family absolutely adores him.** especially my parents. they want me to marry hm; i'm not in a hurry. i am smply enjoyng our time together. he went wth me to arkansas on mother's day weekend to surprse my mama up there on her day [she was up visiting my sister and her famly] and he fit right in. i call him t-mac. and for now, that's all i'll say. **just be happy that i'm happy;** heaven knows i need happiness after my last "relatonshp" wth d-wade.

what else? oh yes . . . i am looking into a job wth a contracting company n germany. it would be a six-month contract and the pay is great. i am crossing my fingers i get this positon, and i need everyone to cross their fingers for me, also. the great thing is it's a contract that i can either re-up or not after the 6 months are up. and snce i've never been outside of the united states **excluding brief drves through canada and mexico which really don't count** i really hope i get ths positon. if i get it, i will leave in june, but will be home in time for thanksgvng. so everyone wish on stars, cross fingers, knock on wood and all that other superstitous crap people do n hopes that i get it. **i really need this.**

i can't really think of anything else going on. i've had an extremely dfficult time lately trying to get motivated to work out. **hell paso just completely screwed me over.** i have prolly snce ganed 5 more pounds than i last reported and honestly, i'm scared to get on the scale in the morning. the good thng about workng out now is that i have a workout partner in t-mac. however, he's about as motvated as i am at the moment, so it makes it doubly hard to go back. we're hopng tomorrow is the start of our workng out routine. **i need ths.** cuz as happy as i am wth t-mac, there is no guarantee it wll last; i refuse to be the fat grl looking for a man. i want that vee! another thing for you people to cross your fingers and wish on stars for **clarificaton for kevin: you're wshng that i fnd motivation, not that i become the fat, single girl!**

sadly, i really can't thnk of anything else to write about. how pathetic is it that the last two weeks of my lfe have been reduced to a few paragraphs? i guess i could talk about my list of pros and cons between the blackberry and iPhone and how even though the **blackberry is winning,** i will keep my iPhone simply cuz i have scrabble and tetris on it. but that's not at all interestng. i did do a bt of yard work over the weekend; planted flowers and whatnot. i thnk they're pretty but in all honesty, t-mac did all the work. all i did was pck out the flowers and the whskey barrel i wanted them to go n. he did all the rest, includng repottng my roommate's plant that is on the verge of dying cuz he's determned to save it. he even mowed my lawn (and my parents' lawn) for free **see?!?! i told you he was great!**

however, for now, that is all i wll write about. it's just about tme for bed and t-mac wll be callng me in a few minutes. so for now, i say, **the sun has gone to bed and so must i; goodbye!**

Hints, allegations & things left unsaid . . .

2009-05-05T23:13:00.002-05:00

So I haven't blogged in a whole minute. I have no real excuse to be quite honest. I'd say I've been busy at work but that would be a lie since I **have no job anymore.** I just finished unpacking my suitcases I've been living out of since I got home from Hell Paso **two weeks ago.** I feel like that's quite an accomplisment, to be quite honest. I still have a huge action packer to unpack but at least I got the shoes out of there. Still need to do laundry. I was looking at my laundry basket the other day and was wondering why it always is full. And when I say always, I really mean it. As I pondered this phenomena, I looked down and realized I was wearing my fourth outfit of the day. **and it was only noon.** Ha!

In other news, I got an iPhone yesterday. I won't get into details about how I procured this particular phone but I must say that **I am completely in lauve with it.** I have always been a staunch BlackBerry fan, to be honest. I have been crazy about my Pearl since I first got it awhile back. But I converted to the iPhone and I'm ashamed to say **I'm a believer** of all the hype now. Matter of fact, I'm blogging from it now! It's amazing. The best thing about it? Scrabble! Yep, on my phone. **Super awesome!**

Gonna start back at Barnes & Noble this week since I got laid off from my main gig. Told them I wouldn't close, though. Hopefully I'll get a few day shifts a week. Best thing about that? I still have my discount. Used it tonight, as a matte of fact! I love that store.

One day soon I'll share more good news with you. **Really good news.** But for now, I'm going to bed. Hitting the gym early tomorrow. Yay!

lucky number 13?

2009-05-01T10:52:00.003-05:00

so yesterday was my first day back at the gym in . . . well, in forever. i left for hell paso determined to continue working out out there. got to the gym there, however, and had different plans. you see, i am a very picky person. i hate small cramped gyms and cheap gym equipment. that's how the gym there felt. and not only that, i was working long hours. basically, **a bunch of excuses** as to why i didn't work out when i was there for two months.

so yesterday i went to the gym and was actually scared to get on the scale. in those two months, i knew **i had gained weight.** i knew it because a) i was no longer exercising; b) i ate like crap; c) my clothes are all fitting tighter than i'd like. so i decide to just go for it and step on the scale. and then i almost fainted.

**THIRTEEN POUNDS**

i couldn't believe that i had gained that much. i will say that knowing i have that much weight to lose all over again made me mad at myself and helped push me to have a better workout. i have a **new workout partner,** also, and that's great cuz he's helping me push me, too. when i looked in the mirror, i could tell i had gained weight. the workout clothes that were loose on me before are now a little tighter than i'm comfortable with. but i'll wear them anyway. it will only remind me of the weight i've gained and the weight i need to lose!

i also have a great support system in my family . . . **especially my sisters.** we try to encourage each other throughout the day with text messages and facebook comments. i am hoping that this weight comes off me pretty fast. just means i have to get back into eating healthy again and making healthy decisions, as i like to call them.

**wish me luck**

anything you ever wanted to know about me . . . or didn't wanna know. but here it is anyway!

2009-04-30T14:08:00.007-05:00

30 Things You Love

1. sleeping in late
2. iced cold bottled water
3. shopping
4. driving with the windows down
5. playing scrabble
6. running 3 miles without stopping
7. rockwall climbing
8. sweet kisses from my nieces and nephews
9. flip flops
10. watching true crime television
11. no TV commercials
12. the miami heat
13. sunday dinner at the parents' house
14. swimming in my parents' pool
15. tanning
16. working out
17. "the amazing race"
18. driving fast
19. chocolate peanut butter ice cream
20. naps
21. doing laundry
22. listening to my music **really** loudly
23. reading
24. sunday mornings
25. coffee
26. crossword puzzles
27. texting
28. mexican food
29. doing nothing all day long
30. kissing

29 Things You Want to Do Before You Die

1. be on either "amazing race" or "survivor"
2. live in tuscany, italy
3. own my own home
4. write for a magazine . . . but a "big" magazine
5. finish my degree
6. learn to surf, sail and snowboard
7. get over my fear of live fish
8. sail around the world . . . or at least to the middle of an ocean where there is no land in sight.
9. live near the beach
10. visit the grand canyon
11. go to hawaii
12. write a book or two
13. publish my poetry
14. be a college professor
15. get a therapist
16. move out of killeen
17. be completely happy
18. get out of debt
19. run a marathon
20. visit all 50 states
21. jump out of a plane
22. bungee jump
23. go on a hot air balloon ride
24. drive down the california coast in a convertible and let the wind rip through my hair
25. own a restaurant / bar
26. go to a broadshow show on broadway.
27. see "the phantom of the opera" opera
28. visit the metropolitan museum of arts
29. live in new york city

28 Songs You Love

1. "by my side" by sade
2. "big blue sea" by bob schneider
3. "night train" by amos lee
4. "ode to billie joe" by bobby gentry
5. "summertime," live version by janis joplin
6. "some other spring" by billie holiday
7. "a kiss to build a dream on" by louis armstrong
8. "harold and joe" by the cure
9. "bullet the blue sky" by U2
10. "god only knows" by the beach boys
11. "judas" by depeche mode
12. "beach chair" by jay-z f/chris martin of coldplay
13. "violet hill" by coldplay
14. "untitled" by keane
15. "read my mind" by the killers
16. "sunday bloody sunday" by U2
17. "new year's day" by U2
18. "simple man" by lynard skynard
19. "sunset boulevard" by charlie robinson
20. "jack and diane" by john cougar mellencamp
21. "aquemini" by outkast
22. "alright" by john legend
23. "cross my mind" by jill scott
24. "tyrone" by erykah badu
25. "hope" by jack johnson
26. "the sun" by maroon 5
27. "who'll stop the rain?" by CCR
28. "put your records on" by corinne bailey rae

27 Things You've Done in This Lifetime

1. ridden a rollercoaster
2. eaten a cricket
3. killed a bug
4. gotten fired from a job
5. was a car saleswoman
6. ran til i couldn't run anymore
7. had a concussion
8. played varsity soccer my freshman-senior year of high school
9. stopped talking to a best friend for years over a boy
10. paid an $800 phone bill
11. lied to my parents and got caught
12. snuck out
13. lied to spare feelings
14. lied to get out of trouble
15. gotten married and divorced all in less than a year
16. traveled and got paid to do it
17. had my tonsils removed
18. hit a buzzard with my car
19. went to mardi gras in new orleans
20. slept in my car
21. called in sick when i wasn't sick
22. read the same book three times in a row cuz i loved it so much
23. shopped more than i needed to
24. got laid off
25. kissed someone i didn't know
26. bought cigarettes for someone who was under age
27. ran a canyon road and puked afterwards

26 Places You Want to Travel to Someday

1. tuscany, italy
2. barcelona, spain
3. hawaii
4. new york city
5. rome, italy
6. sicily
7. portugal
8. buenos aires
9. rio de janiero
10. madrid, spain
11. russia
12. vienna, austria
13. frankfurt, germany
14. connecticut
15. maine
16. grand canyon
17. lake tahoe
18. savannah, georgia
19. costa rica
20. greece
21. nice, france
22. napa valley
23. japan
24. amsterdam
25. nashville, tennessee
26. pittsburgh, pennsylvania

25 Places You've Been

1. dallas, texas
2. austin, texas
3. fayetteville, north carolina
4. salt lake city, utah
5. fort walton beach, florida
6. boise, idaho
7. redondo beach, california
8. hermosa beach, california
9. atlanta, georgia
10. six flags in dallas
11. disneyland
12. capitola, california
13. lubbock, texas
14. weatherford, oklahoma
15. ashdown, arkansas
16. texarkana, arkansas
17. salado, texas
18. fredricksburg, texas
19. college station, texas
20. tijuana, mexico
21. fairbanks, alaska
22. fort rucker, alabama
23. new orleans, louisiana
24. baton rouge, louisiana
25. rexburg, idaho

24 Foods You Love

1. sauteed zucchini
2. bbq chicken
3. pork chops in grey gravy
4. tacos
5. guacamole
6. chips and salsa
7. salad
8. ranch dressing *is that a food?*
9. broccoli
10. hamburgers
11. potatoes
12. pizza
13. popcorn
14. colby jack cheese
15. corn on the cob
16. cashews
17. apples with peanut butter
18. skor candybars
19. onions
20. peanut butter protein bars
21. black olives straight from the can
22. croutons dipped in ranch
23. french fries
24. dad's homemade chocolate cake

23 Movies You Love

1. "the sound of music"
2. "casablanca"
3. "the princess bride"
4. "brown sugar"
5. "the devil wears prada"
6. any and all james bond movies
7. "sex and the city"
8. "brokedown palace"
9. "how stella got her groove back"
10. "peter pan" (yes, the disney cartoon)
11. "private eyes"
12. "boondock saints"
13. "a river runs through it"
14. "legends of the fall"
15. "something new"
16. "an affair to remember"
17. "the three faces of eve"
18. "goonies"
19. "rear window"
20. "psycho"
21. "chicago"
22. "crash"
23. "shawshank redemption"

22 Things You Love to Do

1. take naps
2. workout
3. hang out with friends
4. hang out with family
5. shop
6. eat good food
7. play NTN trivia at buffalo wild wings
8. spend time with my nieces and nephews
9. help others
10. read magazines while laying on the couch
11. take hot bubble baths
12. work on my lawn (not mowing it or anything; more like planting grass and flowers)
13. cook
14. watch true crime television
15. write poetry
16. listen to music
17. do laundry
18. clean house (but i **really** have to be in the mood)
19. run
20. play punchbug via cell phone
21. give my nieces and nephews millions of kisses
22. tease colby

21 Important People in Your Life

1. mama
2. daddy
3. heidi (and family)
4. brett (and family)
5. todd (and family)
6. heather (and family)
7. hilary (and family)
8. chad (and family)
9. scott (and family)
10. leslie
11. ben
12. t-mac
13. sKaren
14. jamie
15. elizabeth
16. kevin
17. john
18. mac
19. angie
20. kuczek
21. mariota

20 Favorites

1. Holiday **christmas**
2. Season **fall**
3. Color **charcoal grey**
4. Animal **anything i don't have to take care of**
5. Vacation Spot **redondo beach, california (one of the only vacations i've been on recently and can remember)**
6. Movie **"the sound of music"**
7. Actor / Actress **taye diggs / julie andrews**
8. Musician / Band **tie: john legend, jack johnson, corinne bailey rae / tie: the cure, depeche mode, old U2, killers, keane and death cab for cutie**
9. Sport **to watch: nba basketball; to play: soccer**
10. Sports Team **football: 49ers; basketball: miami heat; college: texas A&M; baseball: san francisco giants**
11. Book **the count of monte cristo**
12. School Subject **english**
13. Flower **stargazer lily or hibiscus**
14. Food **mexican**
15. Drink **dasani bottled water OR triple tall sugarfree vanilla breve latte**
16. Ice Cream Flavor **chocolate peanut butter**
17. Piece of Clothing **olive green nike shirt**
18. Outdoor Activity **working on my yard**
19. Indoor Activity **cooking**
20. Day of the Week **tuesday**

19 Self-Defining Words

1. loyal
2. smart
3. funny
4. procrastinator
5. witty
6. thorough
7. over-analyzer
8. worried
9. fast learner
10. under-stimulated
11. homebody
12. honest
13. picky
14. in shape
15. tired
16. addicted
17. open
18. down to earth
19. fun

18 Things You Want to Do Before Year's End

1. get out of debt
2. buy new baseboards and moulding for my house and have it installed
3. get a new bed
4. get a new garage door
5. get over d-wade completely
6. save enough money for a down-payment on a car
7. train for a marathon
8. submit my book of poetry for publication
9. apply for "the amazing race"
10. get back into school (if tarleton switches to A&M)
11. be healthier
12. have a better yard than hazel
13. find a job i really love
14. finish getting my realtor's license
15. buy curtains for my house
16. go to six flags
17. visit john and hayley
18. get health insurance

17 Have You Ever's

1. Broken a bone? **fractured my right pinky**
2. Almost died? **not that i know of**
3. Been in a car accident? **more than one**
4. Traveled outside of the country? **just to canada and mexico (how boring)**
5. Gotten a tattoo? **i've gotten four; would like to get rid of three**
6. Been married? **once and i learned my lesson**
7. Had children? **no, thank goodness**
8. Done drugs? **never anything illegal**
9. Blacked out from drinking? **more than once (that was most of my days in college)**
10. Been arrested? **nope . . . i try not to be on the wrong side of the law**
11. Broken the law? **only when it comes to speeding**
12. Been on TV? **just the local news**
13. Seen a miracle? **who knows . . . define "miracle"**
14. Had your heart broken? **oh yes . . . many times by the same man**
15. Broken someone's heart? **not that i am aware of**
16. Been cheated on? **of course**
17. Cheated on someone? **i wish i could say no**

16 Favorite Memories

1. anything with my gramma
2. sharing a room with my sisters
3. hilary taking me to my first concert (blind melon and smashing pumpkins)
4. park city, utah with d-wade
5. spending a week in las vegas with heather, shawn and tyler
6. going to six flags with hilary, chad and scott
7. mardi gras with leslie
8. my second year of girl's camp with diane and marla
9. driving to and spending the week in california with veronica
10. watching my niece being born (even if it did make me puke)
11. last thanksgiving spent in arkansas
12. the summer after i graduated (hung out with regan and lorie EVERY day)
13. being in college
14. my first texas a&m football game
15. playing soccer in high school
16. my first kiss

15 Random Questions

1. Do you want to get married someday?
**been there, and i don't plan on doing it again.
2. Where could you go if you could go anywhere in the world?
**tuscany, italy
3. When / where will your next vacation be?
**not sure . . . but i hope it's somewhere fun!
4. Are you in love?
**yes, but he and i aren't together anymore; i'm working on moving on and i'm "in like a lot" with someone new.
5. What's the most daring thing you've ever done?
**i'm not very daring, to be honest. i guess i once outran a cop. not sure if that's daring or stupid, though.
6. What are three things you could never live without?
**coffee, cell phone and my family
7. If you had to give up one of your senses permanently, which one?
**smell?
8. Your most embarrassing moment?
**they all make me laugh
9. What's the greatest thing you've accomplished thus far?
**being a good aunt
10. What cause are you most passionate about, and why?
**being healthy, if that can be considered a cause. i'm most passionate about that because so many diseases can be prevented by just eating right and being in shape.
11. What political party do you belong to?
**i don't consider myself political.
12. The most beautiful thing you've ever seen?
**uh, who knows.
13. If you could take a roadtrip, where to go and who would you go with?
**anywhere as long as it was with someone i really liked.
14. What's one luxury item / privilege you can't live without?
**is coffee a luxury? if so, then that.
15. If you had to commit any one of the deadly sins, which one?
**lust

14 Things You Look For in a Romantic Partner

1. broad shoulders
2. overall sex appeal
3. sense of humor
4. loyalty
5. honesty
6. hard-worker
7. ability to get along with my family
8. willingness to learn
9. intelligence
10. stability
11. compatibility
12. attractiveness
13. trustworthiness
14. positive attitude

13 Things You Wish You Could Change About Your World

1. i'd have a job i **really** loved
2. i'd be financially stable
3. all of my debt would be gone TODAY
4. i'm leaving the rest of these blank because i think that that is all i'd change right now . . .
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.

12 Random Facts About You

1. i love salt
2. i'm scared to touch live fish
3. i am addicted to text messaging
4. if i'm not listening to music, it's constantly running through my head anyway
5. i am crazy loyal, sometimes to my own detriment
6. i love to run and workout
7. i am scared of dying young and alone
8. i love music
9. i would love to be a psychiatrist
10. i am pretty OCD about a lot of things
11. i have only had one cavity in my life and i cried when i found out about it
12. i like driving

11 Defining Moments in Your Life *leaving this one blank on purpose; i can't think of anything i'd classify as defining, really. i've lived an ordinary life*

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

10 Things, and What They Remind You Of

1. "mr. jones" by the counting crows; reminds me of high school and regan
2. anything from the kanye west "graduation" album reminds me of utah
3. budweiser logos remind me of kenneth michael
4. logan's restaurant reminds me of the summer elizabeth and i became friends
5. the lakers and redskins make me think of d-wade
6. wrestling makes me think of my little brother
7. horses remind me of hilary
8. "goodnight moon" makes me think of jacob
9. the celica reminds me of veronica
10. my house makes me think of gramma

9 Descriptions

1. A Perfect Saturday **sleeping in late, getting coffee, spending time with family, hanging out with friends**
2. Your Best Birthday **last year when i got to see the cure in concert (even if it was the day after my birthday)**
3. An Ideal Dinner **any dinner on sunday night with my family**
4. Your Relationship with Your Parents **open, honest, intense, insane, loving**
5. Your Ideal Wedding **one that never occurs**
6. The Place Where You Grew Up **home**
7. The Time You Felt Most Beautiful / Handsome **any day i can be comfortable with myself and know that i am truly happy**
8. The Scariest Moment of Your Life **learning my daddy had cancer**
9. A Moment in Your Life You Wish You Could Have Back Again **the day my gramma died**

8 Things You Wish You Could Understand, But Don't

1. a man's brain
2. spanish
3. people who are close-minded
4. racism
5. organized religion
6. how someone can kill someone else (i'm just curious)
7. math
8. why coffee tastes **so** good!

7 Things You Wish You Could Do Today, But Can't

1. play the violin
2. play the guitar
3. run a marathon
4. buy a car
5. go shopping and spend all the money i wanted doing it
6. be out of debt
7. see all of my family for dinner tonight

6 Things I Believe In

1. coffee
2. myself
3. pro-life
4. the death penalty
5. money
6. happiness

The Five Senses - Your Favorites

1. Sight **my nieces and nephews, happy**
2. Smell **mama's and daddy's homecooking**
3. Sound **music**
4. Taste **mexican food**
5. Touch **hugs from colby**

The Four Seasons - What You Love About Them

1. Spring **the flowers, the sunshine, the rain, the green**
2. Summer **swimming in mama's pool, family visiting, flip flops and shorts, fmaily and friends coming for BBQs, my birthday**
3. Fall **the weather, the changing leaves, wearing light sweatshirts and flip flops, thanksgiving in arkansas**
4. Winter **the clothing, christmas, family visiting, christmas music, the anticipation of spring**

A Genie in a Bottle - What Are Your Three Wishes?

1. be independently wealthy
2. jacob's diabetes to go away
3. stay this age forever

2 Top Priorities in Your Life

1. getting out of debt
2. being happy

1 Quote to Sum Up Who You Are As a Person

1. "keep on keepin' on" . . . no matter what, i'm always truckin'!

promises, taken back

2009-04-30T13:26:00.002-05:00

so i'm being laid off **again** on tuesday. gotta love the fact that when i got promoted to this position, they told me i'd more than likely not have to worry about getting laid off anymore.

guess they lied.

my long(-winded) weekend

2009-04-27T12:22:00.009-05:00

i got home thursday, as you all know, from hell (paso) and it seemed like from then until sunday, i never stopped going. after the airport on thursday i ended up going to grab a bite to eat with heather at my **favorite place of all-time** (or at least that day cuz i didn't have it for two months in hell paso), jason's deli. then i went straight to mama's house and hung out there til after dinner, with everyone.

as soon as i walked into mama's house, jared came running up to me with open arms and gave me a huge hug and kiss. we chilled for a little bit before he took me to the pantry for a "nack" (snack). apparently since i've been gone, he's been deprived of hard, stale marshmallows and has only gotten fresh graham crackers. but since he's my boy and i know he loves those nasty marshmallows, i pulled them out and let him chow down! **he was in heaven.**

after that, i went to the house and watched "survivor," "grey's anatomy" and "private practice" before falling asleep on my couch. ended up going to bed to wake up early on friday, cuz i had to go to the zoo with colby and his class for a field trip. we hung out at the zoo for a couple of hours and let me say . . . i was **not** used to that humidity! it was crazy! i can say that about hell (paso) -- there was absolutely no humidity and it was nice. i wore the same outfit in waco that i wore every other day in hell and thought i was going to pass out! good thing i survived that, right?

after the zoo was over with, i headed to the house and laid down a bit before heading down to heather's to **mix and mingle with all those who aren't single.** some of our friends stopped over at her house for an impromptu bbq and since i hadn't seen any of them in forever, i decided to have a steak with them and catch up. we did a birthday cake for colby (his second of the day, as we had done one earlier for him with his class at the zoo when we were having a picnic lunch) and i cut out at 1030pm. had to be in dallas early on saturday.

was driving up to dallas to watch my niece, alexis, while valerie and my parents attended leslie's and g's mormony thing. since i cannot go and participate, but leslie is my best friend and i wanted to be there to support her, i volunteered to keep little alexis while the ceremony was going on. after we dropped val off at the temple, alexis and i headed over to the galleria mall to look around. i was good and restrained myself from buying anything, but man i thought i was in heaven for a minute **THE BIGGEST GAP STORE YOU'VE EVER SEEN** . . . i didn't even let myself stay and shop around. i headed out and ended up sitting for like an hour so alexis could sleep soundly. ended up heading back to the temple to meet up with everyone and snapped off a couple of shots of mom and dad with alexis. (sorry about the poor quality of this picture; we don't have facebook at work, so i had to pull the picture off of my phone and it turned out pretty bad, apparently.)

i also took a few shots of leslie, g and their little girl, mags, but for some reason **didn't get any of all three of them together** on my camera. either way, it was a happy day for them!

val and i drove home saturday night and i started to feel sick by the time i got home. burning throat, fever, headache, chills. all of my family was convinced i had swine flu; i just assumed it was allergies. ended up skipping most of dinner with the family on sunday because of my throat, but realized i had to go to mama's house when i looked for food at my place and found none. by the time i got there, there was no food left; i ate two cheese rolls (cheese tacos). they were **eh** but it was my fault for not getting there sooner (and they didn't look nearly as good as these ones).

sunday night i was unpacking my bags and what?!?! i realized i left about $1,000 worth of panties, bras and sports bras in my hotel room in hell. i hadn't noticed it before cuz i was so busy and had plenty of underthings in my suitcase from when i did laundry the night before i flew. finally got in touch with the hotel today and **YAY!** they do have my things. they're sending it all to me this afternoon. however, i'll be sure to wash everything twice **just in case.**

home sweet home

2009-04-23T17:31:00.003-05:00

well today couldn't have gotten here fast enough, i tell you. seemed like yesterday dragged **on and on and on and on . . . and well, you get the point.** then this morning came and i couldn't get out of bed and ended up over-sleeping in by an hour. good thing i was mostly packed and only had a few things to get in the suitcase this morning. then it was off the airport!

the flight out of el paso was right on time and couldn't have been more full . . . literally. they had overbooked and so a couple of my co-workers who were hoping to get on standby didn't make it. as soon as i got into my seat, i was asleep. slept until we landed, actually. **i was exhausted.** got to our gate at dallas . . . and what does that say?

**DELAYED**

no problemo, i thought. only a few minutes. i was originally scheduled on the 1245pm flight out of dallas, but since i was there early enough, i decided to get on the flight daddy was flying on -- the 1145am flight. so i get to the counter, get my seat and am told that my baggage will prolly be on the original flight i was scheduled on. **no big deal,** i thought since i only live 5 minutes from the airport. and besides, we were still leaving before my original flight was. or so i thought.

**DELAYED** again.

by the time all is said and done, we end up leaving the airport at 1pm . . . a lot later than i wanted to. my original flight? left early. finally, we board the plane at 1pm and now what? **we're stuck sitting on the runway for thirty more minutes.** turns out our little crop duster was unbalanced, so we had to move all people and overhead luggage to the back of the plane since all the luggage was on the front of the plane. a little scary when you think about it.

but alas, all is balanced and we're ready to go. and then the turbulence start. **and i'm sick.** twice i had to reach for the puke bag cuz i wasn't exactly sure i was gonna make it. so bumpy. only one other time have i had to do that. it was pretty bad. my stomach was in my throat for most of the flight.

we finally land and i get to the baggage claim. and like the lady at the counter had said . . . my luggage wasn't on the flight. i am worried now cuz i know my original flight left early and i wasn't sure where my luggage was now. as i turn around to walk to the american airlines baggage place, i see my **two lonely suitcases** spinning around and around on the other conveyor belt from the earlier, but really supposed to have been later, flight. i grab them and am on my way.

not meaning for this to be a complaint. so in the end, i'll just say that i am **so** thankful to be home. as soon as i walked in the door, my little 2 year old nephew, jared, ran up to me and threw his little arms around me and gave me a kiss. granted, little ella -- my one year old niece -- had no clue who i was, but she'll warm up to me eventually.

either way, i am **in love with home** today. mama is in the kitchen cooking up some vegetables and daddy is bbq'n the country-style ribs. it's going to be a good night, a good weekend . . .

**a good life.**

me, daddy and mama

2009-04-18T11:28:00.001-05:00

my sister sent me this picture today of me and the parents. it was taken over this past thanksgiving break, and i love it. they are truly two of the best people i know, and i aspire to be like them everyday. i sometimes feel like a huge disappointment to them, but i hope that they are proud to call me their daughter.

i love you, mama and daddy!

"holly and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day"

2009-04-16T07:47:00.005-05:00

so yesterday was all around a bad day. i had a lot of stuff to get done at work and people just **kept bugging me.** bosses and boss's bosses. trying to get stuff done on a deadline is not really my forte. i can get it done during that time, but sometimes -- most times -- i like to take my time to ensure that i do not make mistakes when entering data or working in the database. so work kind of soured my mood yesterday.

i got home expecting to have a night to myself watching all my thursday shows -- "survivor," "grey's anatomy" or "the first 48" and "private practice." got to watch the first show. "grey's," of course, was a rerun **which they've been doing a lot lately** so i turned it over to A&E to watch "the first 48." but what happened? it played an hour earlier here than it does back home so i missed it. by the time "private practice" rolled around, i was too irritated to watch anything and decided it was time for bed.

but what happened before the TV fiasco? **the bathroom fiasco.** yes, that's right.

so the past five days or so, i've had to call maintenance every single day to come and plunge my toilet. and not because i'm, er, "dropping kids off at the pool," or anything like that. it flushes, and then it fills up to the brim and goes down. then it continues to do that. so maintenance has come each day and supposedly fixed it. well last night, i get home and go to the bathroom. the toilet does it's usual flush and fill, but it continues to fill. **and then begins to overflow.** and the toilet continues to run and the water continues to overflow. all over the tile floor in the bathroom. and then it runs over the tile and onto the carpet in the vanity area.

i frantically run into the bedroom area, call the front desk and yell that my toilet has again become clogged and that now it's overflowing all over the floor. they tell me they'll send maintenance right away. i slam the phone down, run back into the vanity area, and begin moving everything off the floor -- namely my shoes -- to prevent toilet water from getting all over them. maintenance finally arrives after five long minutes **did they not hear the panic in my shrill voice on the phone?** and sloshes through the now 2-inches of water covering my floor. he somehow gets the toilet to stop running and leaves to get towels to clean up the mess.

by now, i'm so irritated, i plop myself down on the couch to watch "survivor," and am super annoyed that i missed the first 10 minutes of it cuz of the bathroom. the maintenance guy brings back a ton of towels and the man with the water extractor to clean the carpet. all in all, he's there for almost an hour and the extractor is so loud that i have to turn the TV up to the max volume and sit two inches from the screen to hear it. he then gives me the option of throwing more clean towels on the floor for the night or bringing in an industrial-sized fan to dry the carpet. i opt for the towels for the night cuz **i can only imagine how loud the fan will be.** he takes the soaked towels with him and comes back with several dry ones. puts them on the carpet and leaves.

the rest of the night, i had to walk to the bathroom in flip flops. and this morning, to get into the shower, i had to wear flip flops. i stopped by the front desk on the way to work this morning, while maintenance was in my room, and asked them to also put the fan on the carpet while i was working. i had attempted to tell that to the maintenance man himself, but he **no speaka ingles** so it was a futile attempt. i didn't wanna leave them there fixing my toilet, but i had already waited an hour and a half for them to finish and they looked nowhere near being done. since i was losing work hours, i ended up leaving and telling the front desk to make sure that maintenance closed the door behind them.

i was told i was getting a new toilet or mechanism, if they could replace that. let's hope this doesn't happen again. i just want this weekend to be fairly decent. however, i am super glad that this is my last weekend in this place. i will be just fine if i never have to see hell paso again.

and now, a quiz:

It is midnight. Who are you texting?
*i better not be texting anyone at midnight, since i go to bed at like 9pm! but if i am, it's prolly ben, heather, e or t-mac.

It is Wednesday: where are you usually?
*work. maybe out with friends for dinner or something. but home in time to watch my new guilty pleasure -- "the locator" on WE.

Who are the last four people to send you a text message?
*ben, t-mac, heather and tanya

What is on your mind right now?
*not a lot; i am good today. just listening to music, waiting for my work to come in.

Do you know how to play chess?
*i know the basic concept, but i never win. however, i did come *thisclose* to beating my little brother once, and that was just like winning to me!

What are you listening to?
*my iPod, on random. right now, as i type, it's maxwell's "temporary nite." i **lovelovelove** him.

Your Christmas list consists of:
*i have no clue! it's too early to be thinking about that, isn't it?

You are going to New York for shopping; where do you go first?
*i don't care where i go as long as my favorite shopping partner -- heather -- is with me! i can't wait to get home so we can hang out and go again!

You need a new pair of shoes; what store do you go to first?
*well from now i will be going to the new balance outlet store! or the adidas or nike outlet store. i'll **never** pay full price for a pair again!

How do you feel about your hair?
*pretty indifferent about it right now. i am **seriously** considering cutting it. i am just tired of the maintenance and upkeep. plus, it needs a serious cut and color.

What time do you wake up for work?
*so many factors to consider.

What movie is in your DVD player?
*it's prolly "sex and the city" from the last time i watched it. months ago.

Last two numbers in your phone number?
*ninety2

Who calls you by a nickname?
*several people. not sure i like all the nicknames, but they work. **holly-dolly, hol, punkin, squirt, h, pants, hot pants, etc.**

What side of the bed do you sleep on?
*typically diagonally across the center of the bed. sometimes on the right side. all depends.

Do you like roller coasters?
*i **lovelovelove** them! can't wait to hit six flags this year! who's going with?

Favorite TV show?
*i keep up with "grey's anatomy" and "private practice," but i love "survivor," "the amazing race," "intervention," "the locator," and "i survived." PLUS **all** of my true crime shows.

Favorite beverage?
*it's a tie between dasani bottled water and my triple tall sugarfree vanilla breve latte **so good**

When is the next time you will kiss someone of the opposite sex?
*prolly not for awhile and i'm not particularly happy about that.

What do your pants look like?
*blue jeans from GAP **long and leans**

Are you tired?
*yeah, everyday. getting up at 4am really sucks! so glad that today was the last time i had to do that! and really, i didn't get up til later cuz i woke up today with a **horrible** headache. had to take out my contacts, take meds and go back to sleep for a couple of hours.

Do you have to pee?
*actually, i do. but it's ridiculously windy outside, so i'm holding it til the last possible second!

Would you kiss the cook of tonight's dinner?
*not sure some hot, sweaty dude behind the line at PF Chang's is worthy of my kiss, so prolly not!

Laugh much?
*at least daily. several times daily. **i love to laugh [hahahaha], long and loud and clear . . . ** (name the movie that song is from).

What are your plans for Saturday?
*going to the outlets with the boys, then perhaps some bowling and maybe a little bit of packing! YAY!

What is the dumbest thing you have ever done with your cell phone?
*either throwing it at someone or spilling a glass of iced tea down my apron when i was waiting tables, thus ruining my phone which i had **illegally** in there.

Favorite sit down restaurant?
*el chico, of course! however, i will miss leo's, too **which happens to be just about the only good thing here in hell paso.**

Bubble gum flavor of choice?
*orbit sweet mint. tastes like mint chocolate chip ice cream **in love with it**

Do you want to take something back that happened in the last week?
*not that i can think of.

What do you want to be when you grow up?
*happy and successful.

The most excitement you had this week?
*i don't know that i'd call it "excitement," but my toilet overflowing pretty much takes the cake.

What do you usually order at Taco Bell?
*uh, nothing. i **never** go to taco bell. fast food is bad for you.

Have you ever sat all the way through "Gone With the Wind?"
*several times . . . i own that movie. and it's a goodie.

When was the last time you were up all night?
*it's been a minute. i enjoy sleep too much!

Favorite board game?
*ooh! either scrabble or parcheesi. and sorry when i play with my nieces and nephews.

Where is your favorite place?
*home **or** with my family.

Do you ever think about the price of gasoline?
*nope. why think about it? you have to have it.

Do you sleep with a fan on?
*always! i am like an oven at night. i think that's why it's so hard for me to sleep really good here. no ceiling fans.

What is the best thing about winter?
*not a whole lot. i guess the winter clothes. the weather sucks!

How often do you hold back from saying what you are thinking?
*i don't often hold back; i just try to phrase it tactfully.

Are you currently planning a trip?
*planning a trip back home! i'm also going to try to plan a trip to utah in the summer to see john and hayley, but we'll have to see how the fundage works out first.

Who was the last person you read something out loud to?
*prolly something to a co-worker. who knows.

Last time you forced yourself to do something?
*this morning, when getting out of bed.

Have you ever googled your name and found somebody else?
*yes . . . and i don't like her very much. she is crazy successful and owns every single email address for my name.

pickles in a bag and gas station hot dogs

2009-04-15T06:58:00.004-05:00

first of all, i have to say that the above title contains two of the worst things ever invented by man. or god. or whomever invented pickles **especially "hot" pickles** and hot dogs **especially "gas station" hot dogs.** i have a girl in my office who loves both. and both of them make me wanna puke. and i have no idea why i felt the need to share that, but i did.

today i am annoyed with my company. they promise you one thing -- like all the travel pay they owe you -- by a certain day and nothing happens. no deposit, no money. it's quite ridiculous. even worse is when you're counting on that money to pay bills and such. **that's super annoying.** and so now i'm stuck cuz i have bills due but no money that was supposed to be deposited. they promised it by the 17th, but somehow i believe they're a company who don't [or is it "a company who doesn't"] value promises or people's welfare.

can't think of anything else to talk about this morning. i will be home in 8 days and i am **super** ridiculously excited. my own bed has been calling my name for months, not to mention colby ryan, who has called me just about every single day since i got here. hopefully i can get some major yard work done around the house. and get my car fixed. let's hope i get some money soon to do that!

anyway, leaving you with a quiz today. i have never done this one before. i think it was way fun. read and enjoy **and hayley, i'm expecting you to repost this one**

Aside from Driver's Ed, who really taught you how to drive?
*well, the first person to ever let me drive was my sister heather. and then dad turned the corner, saw me driving **at age 11** and it was all over. hilary used to let me drive her honda around the neighborhood a lot, before i turned 16. so i guess you could say i already knew the basics by the time i took driver's ed. after that, mom used to let me take the little isuzu truck to the church parking lot to learn to go from a complete stop to first gear without rolling on a hill **my parents were insistent that we all know how to drive standards and to this day, they are my favorite kind to drive**

What's the one thing you love / miss about your Grandma's cooking?
*i can't really say i miss too much about her cooking. as much as i loved my gramma, cooking was definitely not her forte. but i do miss everything else about her! except for when she used to try to make my little brother and i drink warm milk to calm our nerves at night when we would spend the night at her house and be scared. there is just something wrong with warm milk. unless it's in coffee.

If you had money to burn, what 3 charities would you donate to?
*no question about it: the american cancer society, american diabetes association, susan g. komen breast cancer foundation. all three diseases run prevelantly throughout my family.

What "Late Night Radio" song would you request to your man / woman?
*not sure . . . i guess i never really listened to late night radio like that, but i suppose it would be something like "by my side" by sade or "ai du" by ali farka toure. both are sexy, sweet songs.

What was the last high school / college project you did?
*last college project was my book of poetry for my independent studies course in college. yes, i have a book of poetry. i even had it all ready for publication, but never submitted it; i have a ridiculous fear of rejection and could never convince myself to submit it anywhere. maybe one day.

As a kid, who was the first -famous death- you remember hearing about?
*no clue . . . i don't think i paid much attention to that, to be honest. plus, i can barely remember famous people now, and you want me to remember a famous person's death years ago? **not happening**

What kind of music did your parent's listen to while you were growing up?
*a lot of beach boys on my dad's part **whom i still love to this day [especially "sloop john b."]** and my mom has always listened to **easy listening** music. not sure why, but she loves it. oh -- and a ton of church music.

Name 2 historic events that have happened in your lifetime:
*9/11 and obama.

Who taught you to tie your shoes?
*honestly, i have no idea. but take your pick of any of my brothers and sisters **excluding scott** and i'm sure he or she had something to do with me learning. maybe even my mom and dad. no idea.

Where did you go on your first official date?
*you'd think i'd remember this, but i have no earthly idea. i know it had to have been with my boyfriend at the time . . . richard mitchell. prolly to the movie or something. when i was 16. leslie and i used to sneak to the movies all the time with our boyfriends **who also happened to be best friends** so i guess unofficially richard and i had been going on dates since we were like 14. maybe he'll remember. i'll ask him next time i talk to him.

When you cruised the strip . . . who were you usually with?
*well in vegas, i was with my sister. in killeen, the "strip" was rancier. regan, lorie and i used to cruise that ALL the time . . . in regan's dad's truck. i remember one summer we put like 5,000 miles on his truck cuz we cruised so much. quite ridiculous. i'm not even sure what we were cruising for. but we did the "box" around killeen . . . WS Young / Twin Creek [depending if we wanted to drive as far as Twin Creek] to Rancier to Fort Hood Street to Stan Schlueter and around again. and again. and then again. for hours. whenever i'm stressed or just need to think or be alone, i **still** drive that route!

Who was like your second mom or second dad?
*growing up, a few people. regan's parents, leslie's parents. and mrs. frisch.

Who is your strangest relative and why?
*not sure i have any strange relatives, to be honest. i don't know all of my cousins, though, so maybe there are some weird ones there? i think we're all fairly normal, to be honest.

What's your typical ice cream order at Dairy Queen?
*mint oreo blizzard, extra oreo . . . thanks, e! but those are very rare.

This or That

Animal House or Caddyshack?
*never seen either one.

Dorito's or Frito Lays?
*mmm . . . i like doritos. the collisions with the chipotle ranch and zesty taco.

Straight-Man or Comic Relief?
*what is that?

Survivor Man or Man vs. Wild?
*man vs. wild. i have a crush on bear grylls **he's so manly**

Casablanca or An Affair To Remember?
*oh man! both are **great** movies, but i will have to go with "casablanca." something about that movie.

Princess Grace or Princess Diana?
*"the princess bride!" anyone ever seen that movie aside from me? i *lovelovelove* that movie! my second all-time favorite, behind "the sound of music" of course!

Books, Movies or TV?
*mmm . . . that's hard. definitely not movies. a tie between TV and books. but only true crime TV.

Marilyn Monroe or Anna Nicole Smith?
*ooh . . . hands down anna nicole smith. she was my hero for the longest time! while marilyn monroe was classically scandalous [or was she scandalously classic?], there was just something about anna. dumb as a board, but convinced a multi-billionaire to change his will to give her everything. **hello, anna . . . i think i lauve you**

Playboy or Hustler?
*neither . . . both are pretty trashy. and degrading. i choose women's health.

Disneyland, Disneyworld, or Universal Studios?
*only been to disneyland, so i will have to choose that by default.

Halloween or Christmas?
*christmas, for sure. i have never been a big fan of halloween. the whole dressing up thing is just too much for me. plus, no one comes home for christmas. and really, i should say thanksgiving cuz that's when i get to see most of my family. and that's always the best time.

Leading or Following?
*a good balance of both, although i was recently informed that i'm bossy. and i immediately took it as a compliment. hahaha! honestly, though. i wouldn't consider myself bossy. just right. and i like things done the correct way the first time.

Planes or Trains?
*how about automobiles? alright fine . . . planes. i've actually never ridden on a train. i think that that could be fun, actually. anyone wanna take a train-trip with me?

Yesterday or Tomorrow?
*yesterday is gone . . . i'll choose tomorrow. it's easier to look ahead.

Favorites

Painting?
*hmm . . . i'd have to say "starry night" by van gogh. mrs. frisch always had it hanging in her classroom when i was in 8th and 9th grade. i loved it.

Museum Exhibit?
*haven't been to a lot of museums in my lifetime, but i love anything WWII related. i am going to the holocaust museum this weekend **way looking forward to it**

Thing to do when you're sitting home alone and the power goes out?
*light a candle or take a nap. after you call the power company, of course.

Snack / Junk Food?
*hmm . . . i'm in love with cashews. and the southbeach living peanut butter high protein cereal bars **so so so good** and gala apples. not that big into junk food. every once in awhile i'll eat a skor candy bar. those are delish.

Pet name for your significant other?
*uh, typically "babe." i do give all my mens nicknames, but i think that those are different than pet names. those are names i give so that i can blog about them without revealing their true identity.

Nickname for your best friend?
*depends on which best friend we're talking about. i have many.

Revenge tactic?
*i don't typically seek revenge. it's not my style. i live and let live.

Song to sing in the shower?
*whatever song i have in my head. i woke up late and immediately thought, "oops! i did it again!" and what song got stuck in my head? "oops! i did it again!" by britney spears. so i will admit that this morning, that was not my favorite song to sing. i was actually annoyed, cuz that's the only part of the song i know. so i just sang that line over and over again until i could get out and turn on VH1.

Bill that you have to pay?
*do people really have a favorite bill? i guess i'd say my gas bill since it's always the lowest. or any bill that is my "last payment" to a bill. so i guess that this month it will be my capital one bill . . . finally paid off!

Cuss word?
*i try very hard not to cuss. my parents dislike it and i try to be respectful of that. so i have been saying "crimany" a lot. i like to say "bastard," but for some reason that seems to be a cuss word. either way, i'd say those two words.

Era to read about or watch a movie in?
*i like to read about WWII, but not sure about the whole movie thing. i guess there are a few movies from that era i like . . . "bridge on the river kwai" has always been a favorite; "the longest day" is another. my most favorite is "casablanca," though.

Poet?
*oooh . . . i love poetry **which would make sense since i'm a poetry major** so i'd have to go with walt whitman, william wordsworth, shakespeare, edmund spenser, who wrote this one, my favorite poem of all-time:

**One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize!
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name;
Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.**

Villain in a movie?
*hmm . . . prince humperdinck from "the princess bride."

Topic to gab with your family about?
*mostly family things . . . things from the past or future. whatever is on the menu is fine with me. we talk about a lot!

And Finally...

If you could be invisible for one day, what would you do?
*oh wow. not sure. prolly the same thing i always do! i'm too boring to be adventurous.

If you could know everything that one person was thinking, who would it be?
*anyone i am dating at the time. it would prolly save a lot of heartache in the end.

If you could have coffee with 3 people, living or dead, who would they be?
*audrey hepburn, my sister who drinks coffee, and **you know i have to say it** your mom.

sister, i see you . . . dancing on the stage of memory

2009-04-10T07:25:00.004-05:00

so today on the way into work, i had my iPod on random **as always.** the song, "peek-a-boo" by siouxsee and the banshees came on and it immediately reminded me of my sister, hilary. she used to **love** that song when we were growing up and i remember she had the cassette single. we'd listen to that tape over and over again in our room.

i am very fortunate to have some great sisters. yes, i have awesome brothers as well, but there is just something about the bond between sisters. i have become very close with all three of mine over the past couple of years and know that i would be truly lost without them. we are each others' support and voice of reason. i know i could ask any three of them for just about anything and they'd do it, no questions **or at least not a lot of questions** asked. i don't think i could have hand-picked better sisters. they are all my best friends.

i miss sharing a room with them sometimes. i know that we're all grown up and everyone has their own life, but i think back to those days and it's always with a fondness. i can remember heather waking me up in the middle of the night to get into her bed so that she could sneak out and mom wouldn't know she was gone if she came in to check on us **heather's bed was RIGHT near the door and hilary and i shared bunk beds across the room; occassionally mom would peak her head in to check on us, but stuffed pillows in my bed looked like me from across the room** . . . i think about the many years hilary and i shared a room and i think that that was the best time. she was in high school but she always let me hang out with her and her friends and i think it was because sharing that room with her made us so close. i have vague memories of sharing a room with heidi, but i guess the thing i always remember about heidi growing up was how nurturing and caring she was; she always made sure my hair was done and that i matched **no wonder she's such a great mother now.**

overall, i think i have the best sisters in the world. i'm also glad that my sisters-in-law are so amazing. they each bring a different thing to the plate and i feel overwhelmingly grateful to have those 3 extra ladies in my life, and honored to call them **as well as my blood sisters** my friends.

so i tip my hat and with a big smile say: **here's to you, sisters!**

haircut!

2009-04-09T16:45:00.006-05:00

okay . . . so i **really** want to get my haircut. and so today i found this AWESOME website called www.thehairstyler.com and you can upload your picture and choose a hairstyle to see how you'd look. i wasn't expecting to like the short styles, but i saw it on me and fell in love with it. so i need your opinion. i won't tell you which one is already winning, but i do need you to post in a comment here which one you like best. i know that there are only two styles, mind you, but i'm also trying to figure out which color is best. i am counting on you! just start at the top and have the first pic be pic #1 and then down until pic #7. thanks!

crazy ladies and paprika

2009-04-09T07:24:00.006-05:00

I can't get to sleep without?
*brushing my teeth

If I were a doll, the accessories packaged with me would be:
*starbucks coffee, cell phone, running shoes, flip flops (a girl's gotta have options), and an iPod. i'd be called "on the go" barbie. ha!

I have an irrational fear of:
*live fish. not seeing them in a tank. but actually having to handle them.

What weight were you when you were born?
*i wanna say i was 8 lbs 7 oz. can't remember, though . . . that was a *long* time ago!

I am most opposed to:
*politics and religion.

I am too old to be:
*without a degree.

I find the thought of childbirth:
*dithguthting.

Next door to my house is:
*an old german lady and her blind husband on one side, a crotchety old woman and her son on the other. but there are no longer windchimes!

My feet are:
*apparently *super cute* . . . and in desperate need of a pedicure!

My preferred style of jeans is:
*long and leans from GAP. they **always** make my booty look cute!

I know how to cook:
*just about anything, but i'm sometimes scared to try new things.

I am annoyed at / with:
*people who live for and love other's people drama so that they have something to talk about or start. **grow up and get your own life already**

Men should always:
*take out the garbage.

Women should never:
*get paid less for doing the same job as a man.

What child-related smell do you not like?
*poopy diapers, formula, spit up, etc.

What sea creature scares you?
*sharks.

What color hair do most of the people you are around have?
*dark or grey, surprisingly. i work with a lot of old men on this test.

What object have you broken most recently?
*my heart. hahaha! no seriously, that was a joke. oh! this morning, as i was hanging my towel up on the towel rack, i somehow managed to rip the entire rack thingy off the wall. and since i was running way late, i had no time to call it in to housekeeping. in my defense, this has happened before. i'll let the maid find it and call for me.

Name one of the Spice Girls?
*paprika?

What was the last thing to make you cry?
*being frustrated / angry with my job. not really my job, i should say. a specific co-worker.

I would like to be in an advertisement for:
*hmm . . . not sure. never really thought about it. prolly something i'd promote . . . so either starbucks, dasani or iPod / apple. i could dance my way across the screen.

What are the stems of wine glasses for?
*to hold onto and hang.

My favorite shoes are:
*oooh . . . i have so many **favorites** . . . my black quiksilver flip flops, any of my new balance kicks, my newer nikes. i have a ton.

My mother's greatest fear is:
*getting alzheimer's, like her mother. i don't think she has anything to worry about. she keeps her mind sharp.

Can you use chopsticks?
*i prefer to eat things with a fork, as the good lawd intended.

Do you prefer beaches or forests?
*beaches! is there anyone out there who would prefer a forest?

word of advice . . .

2009-04-08T17:14:00.000-05:00

*never* open your mouth in the middle of sandstorm.

we're not in kansas anymore, toto . . .

2009-04-08T12:44:00.003-05:00

i have traveled to a few different places TDY while working for my company. i will have to say that i've always deemed *dugway, utah* as perhaps the worst of all of the places i've been. from the smell of the porta-potties, to field mice and rusty trailer hitches, to the embarrassing notes left by maids, ripped jeans and bloody knees coupled with tetanus shots, i am pretty sure that dugway tops the list of *suck.*

however, today when i was walking here at dona ana base camp, for a moment, when the wind blew in *just* the right direction, kicking up sand in my face, forcing even the bunnies to run for cover and wafted that oh-so-familiar stench of the porta-potties across the arid desert . . . for a brief moment i believed myself to be in dugway.

and i had a mini-heart attack.

turkey stroganoff disaster

2009-04-08T07:08:00.002-05:00

so as i mentioned in the previous post, i decided to make stroganoff for dinner last night. i got all of the ingredients and whatnot through gritted teeth *and only gritted teeth cuz i had to brave walmart at 7pm in el paso, where every place remains crazy busy* and started dinner.

i should've known that it wouldn't be good with turkey. but so far, whenever i have replaced hamburger with turkey, it's been a decent, if not good, meal. last night was the *exception* to the rule. ben, one of my best friends, stopped over to have dinner with me and typically he always has seconds of whatever it is that i am cooking. last night, not so much. i could tell he was having a hard time eating firsts. it was just so . . . bland.

chef chad, my brother, told me i should've added salt and pepper. there is something wrong when you add more salt (and pepper) than one should consume in a month's period to one dish and it's *still* bland. it's especially bad since i'm a saltaholic and am a firm believer that salt makes just about any dish good.

i was supposed to bring a plate of food in for daddy today for lunch. i didn't. i couldn't bear to serve him that mess. and unfortunately, he brought nothing for lunch himself. i do have to go into town today to fedex some paperwork, so while i'm there, i'll pick both him and i up something to eat.

and i can assure you, there will be *no turkey* in it at all.

today's haiku

2009-04-07T18:25:00.004-05:00

watching the t.v.
character is a big jerk
reminds me of you

*and on a side note. i'm making homemade stroganoff for dinner tonight. it was always one of my favorite dishes growing up. i haven't had it in *ages* as my mom refuses to make it anymore. that and chicken broccoli casserole. i asked dad the other day if he wanted some when i made it and he made the *puke* sound and made it very evident that he didn't. and so, i'll eat all the stroganoff myself. nanny nanny boo boo!*

a quiz, cuz i can.

2009-04-07T16:50:00.003-05:00

so i'm supposed to be teaching this old lady how to do these forms for work. problem is, she's *incredibly* annoying. or maybe i should say she's inquisitive. either way, she drives me nuts. and so now i'm pretending to be doing work -- you know, looking down at my "paperwork" on my desk every once in awhile, shuffling papers, pulling out folders, etc. -- all in the name of putting off the training. i have two hours left and i'm not sure i can keep this up for too much longer before my boss asks me when i'm going to train her. but until that time comes, i'm going to continue to "work" and do nothing online. yay!

a quiz for your reading / viewing pleasure.

have you ever thought about getting your lip pierced?
*nope . . . never. i had once considered getting my eyebrow pierced, but am ridiculously glad i never did. now i would *never* ever consider any facial piercing.

does a kiss make you feel better?
*depends on who's doing the kissing and where.

have you ever passed out on the bathroom floor?
*not that i can recall. my sister once dropped me when i was like 3 after she was swinging me in a circle by my arms. i passed out then. my very first memory is waking up screaming and my oldest sister holding my tongue. *great first memory, huh?*

do you start the water before you get in the shower or when you get in?
*before i get in. who wants to stand in freezing cold water while waiting for it to turn hot?!?

what did you do today?
*worked. drove back and forth from dona ana base camp. going to cook dinner tonight. then sleep.

Have you ever brushed your teeth while in the shower?
*not that i can remember.

Have you had more than 3 boyfriends / girlfriends at the same time?
*uh, i might've dated more than 3 people at the same time, but none qualified as a boyfriend if i did.

have you ever thought about your death?
*as a matter of fact, i have. i used to play "who killed me and why" with my friends. via text message. and then i promptly got on anxiety medication.

ever been in love?
*i've been *in compatability* with someone. is that the same thing?

would you rather be in a permanent relationship or play the field?
*at this time in my life, i think i'd rather be in a relationship, although i'm not sure i'd call it a permanent one. i think i've played the field enough to know what i do and do not want.

what is your favorite sport?
*to play? soccer. to watch? basketball.

what color is your shower curtain?
*it's maroon and tan, i think.

have you ever had stitches?
*nope. a butterfly bandage, but it should've been stitches.

did you believe that boys / girls had cooties?
*i'm sure i did when i was little. no clue.

do you know how to use chopsticks?
*i can use them, but not very well. i prefer a fork.

lyrics stuck in your head?
*"you were in my heart" by lenny kravitz. i'm singing along to the song.

do you like the Red Sox or Yankees?
*nope . . . i'm a giants fan.

what are you doing tomorrow?
*prolly pretty much the same thing i did today. fun stuff.

who was the last person you couldn't take your eyes off of?
*your mom . . . she's hott.

have you ever given money to a homeless person?
*quite frequently, although watching "intervention" has led me to believe that they're all alcoholic crack whores. either way, i still give. "WWJD" (ha!)

have you ever run over an animal?
*only a buzzard. on purpose. kind of. i thought the stupid bird would be smart enough to move. and it was . . . but flew right into my windshield. bird feathers for DAYS!

what is your favorite cereal?
*i'm a fan of cream of wheat *delish*

have you ever had an oreo with peanut butter?
*nope, but i wouldn't be opposed to trying it.

What are you doing right at this moment?
*avoiding teaching the new lady the forms *she's rather annoying*

do you think its right for straight guys to get their tongue pierced?
*i don't think it's right for *any* man to have his tongue pierced. period.

where's your favorite place to be?
*my house

what's your favorite song?
*oh so many to choose from. i'm feeling "ai du" from *unfaithful* . . . can't think of the artist . . . ali farka toure, maybe? it's a *great* song.

are you more of a coffee or alcohol drinker?
*coffee! YAY!

have you ever thrown shoes on a telephone wire?
*nope . . . my mama would've kicked my *you-know-what* had i done that as a kid . . . or adult!

have you ever been skinny dipping?
*yep . . . at my mama's house. with my sister. bad idea.

have you ever been arrested?
*no sir. i was a good kid.

do you dream in black and white?
*only when i'm not dreaming in color.

do you talk in your sleep?
*not sure. i'm typically sleeping and can't tell.

do you snore?
*nope.

are you a redneck?
*nope . . . but i am related to *more* than a few.

funniest thing you heard all day?
*your mama jokes . . . they *still* crack me up. and we do them daily, all day long.

have you ever gotten a mosquito bite on your face?
*not that i can think of, but i'm sure i have!

what are you afraid of?
*dying young / alone, driving over water.

and oh yeah . . .

2009-04-07T09:29:00.002-05:00

is anyone else having issues changing fonts or colors on their blog? it no longer gives me those options. i can only bold or italicize fonts. what gives?

your mama wears combat boots . . .

2009-04-07T09:19:00.003-05:00

so this week i've been working quite a bit of overtime. and quite frankly, i'm not going to complain *at all.* the money is going to nice, i hope. anyhow, nothing exciting going on. just thought i'd post this pic i snapped of myself over the weekend, heading into the field. after all, i think i look *ridiculously* cute!

my daddy, the derelict

2009-04-01T16:49:00.005-05:00

so things here in hell paso are moving right along. not very smoothly, but moving, nonetheless. test hours are long and everything is pretty chaotic, but i'm surviving and *counting down the days* til i get to go back home! i am really looking forward to sleeping in my own bed and seeing all of my family.

like i have said before, i have been fortunate to have daddy out here on this test with me. one weekend he hadn't shaved and he jokingly said that he was going to grow his beard out. i told him now is the perfect time, as mom isn't around to tell him to *shave it off.* and that's when the beard-growing began.

daddy hated his beard from the start. every day he complained about *looking like a derelict* and how it was itchy and annoying. whenever he complained about the latter, i'd get out some of my *really good lotion* and rub it on his face, hoping that it would soothe his beard. then i'd scratch it for him and tell him it looked so good! truth be told, i *really* liked the way he looked with it.

yesterday morning, daddy informed me that he had had enough of the beard. he said it was really itchy and compared his annoyance with it to my annoyance of not shaving my legs as i shave them everyday and hate going without. i told him not to do it, but since he was so sure he was going to shave it off, i snapped a couple of pics of him with it. we posted those pictures on facebook last night.

i posted them on his facebook page in one of his albums and before i could even post it as his profile pic, his phone rang that familiar ring. it was mom. i had joked to him that as soon as she saw the pic, she'd call, but i didn't realize she would be *that fast!* "SHAVE IT OFF OR DON'T COME HOME!!!" she said into the phone. dad laughed and said it would be gone that night. we took a poll of whether or not he should shave it on his facebook status, and the only three haters were my oldest sister, brother and cousin. everyone else *loved* it.

i didn't see him again until this morning when we were getting ready to make the hour-long drive to work. and sure enough, he was clean-shaven once again. i guess his beard was fun while it lasted!

2009-03-30T16:29:00.000-05:00

today's haiku

2009-03-30T16:03:00.003-05:00

wind in the background
beating against the windows
mother nature screams

the windy city blues

2009-03-30T13:29:00.005-05:00

i have decided that i am officially going to steal chicago's nickname of "the windy city" and bestow it on this great deserted desert (i like repetition) of crap, otherwise known as dona ana base camp. even though i understand that chicago's nickname came from politico blowhards and *not* mother nature, it would fit so nicely with this place.

driving into work today, i honestly thought that i was going to crash. tanya (my co-worker) and i were blowing all over the road. and this time it wasn't cuz i was looking down and texting when i should've been looking up and driving. nope, not this time. i *even* had both hands on the steering wheel *another odd thing for me to do (safety? what's that?)*. we got here to work, and walking from the parking spot into the office, which is actually a pretty good distance, i got a mouthful of sand, an eyeful of grit and an ear full of screaming winds. and it was cold. good thing the generator had gas in it this morning; i wasn't prepared to freeze in here this morning.

there are dirt devils everywhere and dust storms only every other minute. as i type, i can hear the wind howling outside my window, the floppy screen door opening and slamming shut. we're required to wear safety goggles out here when we leave the buildings; i don't own any. i left my sunglasses in my car this morning on accident, so now when i go outside, i just cover my eyes and peak through a little gap between fingers *kind of like you know you used to do when playing hide and seek and you were "it"* . . . i have had spare time today; perhaps it's a mixture of that or the utter lack of sleep i'm going on -- did i mention i only got about 4 hours total last night? -- that i keep wondering what it would be like to be swept away in the wind, a la dorothy from "the wizard of oz." what would i see? where would i go? i'd hope i'd end up somewhere far away and tropical . . . maybe hawaii? or italy. i have always wanted to go there. who knows.

anyhow, i feel like now i'm rambling on about, once again, *nothing!* that seems to be my favorite topic of conversation lately. i guess this day didn't prove to be as eventful as i hoped. at least i get to make those fajitas tonight. and *my* homemade guacamole. that is, if i don't fall asleep as soon as i get out of the shower tonight . . . at 5pm!

a whole lotta nothing

2009-03-30T05:00:00.004-05:00

it's 402am and i have already been awake for two hours, at work for just over 20 minutes. it's entirely too early to be up, and yet, here i am . . . almost fully functional. of course starbucks isn't open this early, so i'm going to have to rely on good ol' brewed coffee from the office. i was sure to buy the good kind *although NOT starbucks cuz while i love their lattes, their brewed coffee has always tasted burned to me* with the good creamer and the good sugar. hopefully that will last me until starbucks opens and i have a break to drive the 25 minutes back into town to get one. yes, it's almost an hour round trip, but it's so worth it when that triple tall sugarfree vanilla breve latte passes my lips.

i hope things go smoother today than they went yesterday. i was supposed to be off yesterday; that didn't happen. it was 1pm and i was getting ready to make fajitas for dinner. the first shift was heading into work yesterday at 3pm, so i was going to make them in time to send some out with them for daddy to eat. i had pulled out the chicken, was getting ready to chop the vegetables when my phone rang. i saw it was my boss and for a split second, *i thought about not answering it.* but i did . . . and then i had to come into work. i put everything back into the fridge, made myself a sandwich and headed out.

got in at 2pm. wasn't sure why i was called in, to be honest. there really wasn't anything that i could do. i fixed a couple a things but ended up waiting around for a whole lotta nothing. we finally figured out we needed to have a meeting for clarification at some point with the ORSA (the head data guy on the gov't side), but of course he was in meetings for most of the afternoon. we finally roped him into coming over at about 7pm, which put me here until almost 8pm. got home at a quarter til nine, went to bed . . . and laid there. i think it was the anticipation of knowing i had to get up at 2am for work and also being nervous i'd miss my alarm. i fell asleep before 10pm, but not sure of the exact time. either way, when my alarm went off at 2am, *i sure wasn't ready for it.*

and so i'm sitting here in the office, writing about nothing cuz i really have nothing to write about. perhaps today will bring some sort of excitement that i can tell about. highly doubtful, but i'll pretend. and since i don't want this blog to be a complete and total waste, i'll leave you with yet another survey:

What do you consider some perks of being your gender?
*well, there is the obvious, but since my mama and daddy read this, i won't go there. secondly, we can get away with a lot more. although i don't do it often, playing the damsel in distress will get you everywhere. and the third? shopping. i don't think i need to elaborate on that one.

Would you ever get someone's name tattooed on you?
*i have my name tattooed on me, but it's in arabic and one can't really tell what it is. i was young and dumb, i suppose. i would never do it again . . . *any* tattoo, for that matter.

What occupation do you find sexy?
*anything that requires a man to wear a suit. or at least a shirt and tie. that's always been sexy to me.

What is your LEAST favorite type of alcohol?
*liquor. any liquor.

Did you ever have tea parties when you were younger?
*not that i can remember. i was pretty much a boy when i was little, so i was more into football and G.I. Joes than i was into tea parties.

Have you ever shaved someone before?
*no. just my own legs.

Do you know anyone personally who is terminally ill?
*not that i can think of.

What is your favorite line from a movie?
*any line from "the sound of music." i *lovelovelove* that movie.

Would you rather be the opposite sex?
*maybe for a day.

Do you like spending time with your parents?
*love it . . . can't wait to get home to see my mama!

What would you do if you saw a guy hit a girl?
*call the cops.

Have you ever gambled?
*yes. once, with leslie. we went to new orleans for mardi gras and gambled at harrah's. on the slot machines. we lost.

What would you NEVER name one of your children?
*i don't plan on having children, so i guess any name will do here.

What is the coolest restaurant you've ever been to?
*hmmm . . . define cool. i'd rather have good food than somewhere "cool" that sucked.

Do you have any analog clocks in your house?
*none that work, i don't think.

What do you do with clothes you've outgrown or don't want anymore?
*give them to my sisters / sisters-in-law.

Where do you go when you want to get a REALLY good sub sandwich?
*i guess either quizno's or subway. i do love jason's deli, though. it is good.

What is the lowest grade you ever received on a report card?
*B, i'm sure.

How often do you go to the bathroom in a day?
*quite a few times. i drink *a lot* of water.

Do you use tobacco products?
*no no no . . . that is *dithguthting.*

What magazine do you read or look through most often?
*women's health, when i'm home.

Do you support local music / artists?
*if they're good, i will.

What style of house would you like to live in?
*whatever. something that i can put my bed in and take a bath in every once in awhile. i'm not incredibly picky.

Would you ever go a week without showering?
*no. never.

If your nails are painted, what color are they?
*either a pink or red of some sort. i'm pretty standard.

When you see a movie based on a book, do you go and read the book?
*i don't watch movies usually; i'd rather just read the book in the first place.

Do you put posters on your bedroom walls?
*not anymore. i think i'm a little too old for that.

Do you use iTunes or do you use another music player?
*iTunes, windows media player, etc. whatever.

Do you flip the channel when commercials come on?
*i DVR. then i fast forward the commercials. otherwise, i mute the TV.

Are there any really gross dishes in your bedroom?
*uh, no . . . i *never* eat in my bedroom.

Would you ever date someone with a different skin color than you?
*skin has nothing to do with personality, typically. but yes, i would.

What would you do if your parents caught you drinking?
*i'm old enough to make those decisions.

Do you watch any cartoons?
*only family guy. it makes me laugh.

What was your favorite book as a kid?
*any of the boxcar children books. i LOVED them!

Have you ever lost a house or car key that you never found?
*yep . . . house key, anyway.

If you had lose one of your body parts what would it be?
*i don't think i'd want to lose any of them.

i got my mind on my money and my money on my mind . . .

2009-03-27T12:46:00.004-05:00

i'm trying to think of something to write about today. i have been MIA lately cuz of work issues. a few times i haven't been on my computer. other times, i've been teaching training to a bunch of idiots who can't grasp the concept of the program i work with and so i'm continuously having to answer the SAME question again and again. *c'mon people! it's not all that hard!*

regardless, i don't have a lot to write about. i have been down a bit lately, as well. the death of my friend has made me take stock in a lot of things, has made me miss my friends and family tremendously. the highlight of my day seems to be hearing from my mama, my sisters (even if it is to about 'luckey fannie,' 'plain white Ts' or 'house keys for john's house') and little colby (always the same conversation, but i love him anyway). i'm fortunate to have my daddy out here with me; we try to hang out and have dinner together at least twice a week. i am looking forward to getting away from co-workers and going to dinner with him tonight. i'm also glad we're on the same shift this time around; we've been on several tests before but it seems that he's always on opposite shifts as i am. having him around helps a lot with the homesickness. less than a month and i'm home.

i hate being away from home because i lose my routine. all of my routines. i have been eating like crap out here for the most part and haven't successfully been to the gym out here for more than a day in a row, one day a week. i can tell i'm gaining weight, and while it irritates me, i do nothing about it. i dislike the gym out here and it's hard on my asthma for me to run outside (side note: ben and i ran the canyon the other day and i puked everywhere when i was done and couldn't catch my breath for the next two days). i haven't been eating out a lot but when i do, i overindulge in all the *authentic* mexican food and amazing chips and salsa. heaven knows the only place i eat out here is leo's mexican (thanks again, samantha, for the recommendation). i miss my own bed, my own shower, my own friends, my own life. everytime i go TDY i feel as though my life is put on hold and the rest of the world continues. i really hope that i don't have to do this forever!

wow . . . i didn't intend on this blog being a downer. on a funnier note, my maid steals from me. but she never steals anything worth much. it's mostly my allergy medication. the first time i realized it, it was because she left the box but took the actual pills and left me with none. and since i'm ridiculously routine and OCD, i open my allergy pills a certain way; she opens them differently. i also count my medicine. every night, one extra is missing. since it's *only* my allergy medication right now, i haven't reported it. everyone keeps telling me i need to, and while i agree that it's wrong, i'd hate for anyone to get fired in this economy. let her touch my skor candy bar or my dasani water -- THEN i'll tell! do you think i should tell, though?

anyhow, just got tasked with a bunch of work stuff, so i'm going to end this with a survey i stole from www.surveydumpster.com. i expect you all to read and repost it on your own!

What's your favorite color gummy bear?
*i am a fan of the red and orange ones. red and orange anything, actually . . . skittles, starbursts, etc.

What is the sexiest part of the opposite sex's body?
*i'm a HUGE fan of shoulders. it's the first thing i notice. if a man has droopy shoulders, i cannot and will not talk to him in any way other than platonic.

Have you ever made up / sang a song for someone you cared about?
*nope . . . we did make a song when we were stuck in NTC for a test, though. it was called, "sittin' in the back of the truck." we sang it the entire month we were there.

Ever had a song sang about / for you?
*not that i can remember.

Is there a baby in the room with you right now?
*well, not a *real* baby, but i'd venture to say a lot of my co-workers are babies!

Do you know how to dance?
*i think i do pretty good, to be honest. i have rhythym.

Where do you sing the most, in the car, the shower or other?
*i sing anytime i am listening to music, no matter where it is!

What is your favorite thing that is green?
*money, of course!

What did your last text message say?
*"they lost my records from last year" from my roommate.

Boxers, briefs or boxer briefs?
*on a man? boxer briefs, for sure!

What is your middle name?
*i actually don't have one, but i once convinced everyone at high school that it was *olga.* don't ask me why!

What is the way to your heart?
*sexiness, humor and my family /friends have to like you.

What do you smell like?
*today, it's a mix of moonlight path lotion and "isle of pink" perfume.

What's in your pocket?
*a hair band.

Anything in your mouth?
*eating a subway sandwich.

Ever hurt yourself playing Wii?
*no, but my arm was sore the next day after playing bowling on one.

Do you have freckles?
*few and far between. not a whole lot.

How many languages can you say "Hello" in?
*5, i think?

What's the last movie you saw in the theater?
*i wanna say it was "madea goes to jail." and it was quite horrible.

Ever jumped / fallen / been pushed in a pool with your clothes on?
*all of the above!

Are you wearing any clothes that you wore yesterday?
*nope . . . these are all clean ones.

Name a song that you know all the words to:
*wow . . . SO many! "by my side," by sade.

Are you in love with someone right now?
*can i plead the fifth here? if not, then yes i am.

What's the last thing you watched on TV?
*it was "private practice," last night.

What's the last video game you played?
*brickbreaker on my phone.

Who is your daddy and what does he do?
*my daddy is the best man i know; he's an operations lead for the company i work with.

Can you do the alphabet in sign language?
*yep. learned it in the 2nd grade, i think.

Do you have an uncle named Joe?
*nope.

What word do you use when people pass gas?
*fart, i guess.

Do you wear glasses?
*i do when i'm not wearing my contacts and i wear sunglasses when i'm outside.

What can you hear right now?
*my music . . . right now it's "mercy in you" by depeche mode.

Did you feel better or worse or the same yesterday?
*worse . . . yesterday i was not in a good mood *i was peopled out*

Ever been overseas?
*nope. but i'd love to go one day!

What are your plans for today?
*finish up with work, go to dinner with daddy, go bowling with the boys and then go to bed!

What was your favorite childhood show?
*"mr. rogers' neighborhood," for sure!

Are you close to your siblings?
*i am, especially my sisters and sisters-in-law.

What was your first job?
*officially? it was as a bagger at HEB (grocery store); unofficially, it was babysitting.

Do you bite your nails?
*never! my mom always told us it would give us cancer and even though i know better now, i still won't bite them!

Do you like your feet?
*i do. i have been told on *several* occassions that i have cute feet.

Do you sleep well at night?
*sometimes. most of the time i'm up throughout most of it, though.

RIP

2009-03-24T12:21:00.005-05:00

it has been a somber two days for me. i received a phone call last night from a friend that a mutual friend of ours, whom we'll call E, had something tragic happen in her life.

E's boyfriend (whom I'll call R) was beaten to death with a baseball bat in Indiana when he was there TDY for his job. E and R shared a home in Crosby, TX and R often took small TDY trips for his company, based out of Houston. Apparently, R and a couple of his co-workers stopped at a bar after work Saturday night to have a couple of drinks and unwind. The details we have are sketchy, but what we do know is that some guys overheard a conversation R and his two friends were having and it upset them (we do not know what the conversation was about). When R and his two friends left the bar, several men (as we were informed) jumped them in the parking lot and beat them up. R was beaten so badly that he was unrecognizable. The other two friends were beaten and are still in the hospital, but out of critical condition.

This makes me so sad. I had met and hung out with R several times. We all got together on NYE 2007 and spent it together in Austin. Knowing R, it's hard for me to imagine him starting any confrontation or participating in one. He was always the goofy kid keeping the peace. I am heartbroken for E. The doctors sustained R on life support (he barely had a pulse when the paramedics arrived) until E could fly to Indiana to be with him. They removed him from life support last night; his heart subsequently stopped beating. His family donated his organs; the funeral is in Pennsylvania.

I cried a lot for E and R, for his family and hers. They had dated for so long that one name was synonomous with the other. I cry for the pain that she is going through, for losing someone she so dearly loved. I am angry at the men who did this to them. I feel that it wasn't only done to R; it was done to everyone who knew him. They did get the men into custody and are charging them with murder. I hope they get the death penalty. Today, I believe in an eye for an eye. I have no compassion for them, those evil dirt bags who did this to R.

His death has also put into perspective many things in my life. It has made me appreciate the life I do have, the people I have in my life. Those who love me, those I love. I have told them all several times how I feel for them in the last two days. It has also made me think about organ donation. R's death can potentially help save many others. While his ending has been tragic, his life gives new hope for those on the list. Today, I decided to become an organ donor. I hope that should anything ever happen to me, my life will not have ended for nothing; that I will be able to save the life of someone else.

I do not want this blog to end on a sad note, but today that's how I feel. If you haven't thought about organ donation before, I encourage you to consider it; talk with your family and loved ones about it. Tell them you love them. You never know how tomorrow will end.

it's all fun and games . . .

2009-03-23T16:39:00.005-05:00

i have always loved puzzle and word games. every morning i get onto the women's health magazine site online to check any new exercise tips and to enter their daily sweepstakes. one morning, they had a link to the mah jongg game. i didn't think i'd be able to play it since i'm on a DoD computer and they have EVERYTHING blocked. however, i clicked the link and to my delight *and* surprise, i was able to play it. and so now whenever i'm sitting in the office, bored out of my mind cuz there really is no work for me to do, i play.

and i thought i'd share my joy and delightment with you! click on the link below and enjoy!

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/files/mah-jongg-game/index.html

**holly hawkes**

a bit of a downer and for that, i'm sorry . . .

spin class . . .

"rock"ing and rolling . . .

good will hunting?

one more about dogs . . .

dogs in diapers . . .

doggy day care . . .

not a lot to talk about . . .

meet charlotte . . .

blah

you had me at "mint chocolate chip"

more garden stuff . . .

an impromptu home improvement project

so many things, so much time . . .

home improvement 101

july -- and possibly august & september -- home improvement project

a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong survey

the passing of the celica . . . and horsepills

this little piggy had roast beef . . .

guess who's back?

ugh!

an issue being addressed that really shouldn't need to be addressed . . .

pink pink, you stink!

frank, jr.

do you think the surgeon general smokes?

TDY again

i now pronounce you . . . father and daughter?

long lost picture of heidi . . .

five-star cooking, right?

a question . . .

the grasshopper

and a random question . . .

. . . losing my religion . . .

a little quiz about my biz . . .

just some fun sunday pictures (mostly)

why is it . . .

more job stuff . . .

yes she's back, back again . . .

a rant and some amateur photography

just an observation . . .

dr jekyll and ms hyde

jobs, school and clothes

monday, monday, monday!

"the boy in the striped pajamas"

you're all a bunch of snollygosters!

good news . . .

the butcher and candlestick maker . . . what about the third?

oh to be independently wealthy!

a day in the life . . .

drains, lemon tarts and jobs

the third and fourth

woohoo!

monday, monday

those lazy, hazy, crazy days . . .

what a lazy day!

page layout

it's an obsession . . .

ramblings on a wednesday . . .

and another reason my beau is the best . . .

life and times . . .

oh the drama!

Hints, allegations & things left unsaid . . .

lucky number 13?

anything you ever wanted to know about me . . . or didn't wanna know. but here it is anyway!

promises, taken back

my long(-winded) weekend

home sweet home

me, daddy and mama

"holly and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day"

pickles in a bag and gas station hot dogs

sister, i see you . . . dancing on the stage of memory

haircut!

crazy ladies and paprika

word of advice . . .

we're not in kansas anymore, toto . . .

turkey stroganoff disaster

today's haiku

a quiz, cuz i can.

and oh yeah . . .

holly hawkes