If you're a regular reader of this blog, you are already familiar with his work.
He is the Cuteness' father.
But apparently I've never mentioned him before on the blog, or at least not in great length. And he was feeling left out.
So this post is dedicated all to him.
If you reside in the Austin area, you might recognize him. He's the Local Lottery Dude (official title).
He draws the balls. And also cleans and polishes the balls.
And believe me, we've had countless hours of fun coming up with jokes about Eric and how he likes to play with balls. Believe me, we've exhausted every possibility.
Eric is an avid outdoorsman. He enjoys hunting, boating, drinking, playing horseshoes, and all other manner of outdoor activities that men in Texas do.
He's happily married to my friend Sara.
But does love the ladies (don't worry, that's just Christy and I. He's allowed to flirt with us.)
He's a great chef. Seriously, this man can cook.
He looks good in a toga. With foliage on his head. No small feat.
He and The Cowboy have a great Man Love for each other. It's cute. And also, weird.
He's also one of the nicest people I've ever met. Seriously. Outstanding guy. Even if he does like to give me a hard time about my politics.
Here is Eric a few weeks ago, at approximately 2:30 am, after an evening of drinking, stirring up shit and getting me riled up about gun control. Then he goes and passes out.
It's been 3 weeks since my last post, and I have been in 1 giant funk lately. You know, the kind of funk where you put on Iron & Wine and listen to it on repeat like 3,478 times.
I love me some I&W, but it's not exactly feel good music, you know?
I don't have any reason to be in the funk, I've been off work for 7 weeks, and have 3 more to go before I have to go back. I have 2 vacations coming up. Michigan next week, and PaloDuroCanyon the week after that. But you may have noticed that I've been noticeably absent from my blog. I've been doing plenty of reading, but 0 knitting this summer.
Needing to snap out of it, I've come up with a guaranteed mathematical equation that is fail proof and will work every time. Feel free to apply this formula to your own life, should you find that you need a little defunkifying. And you're welcome.
1 Girls Night Out with my friend Megan. Dinner, margaritas, a movie and numerous laughs. Works every time. (You'll need to find your own friend, though. Megan is not for rent.)
2 viewings of The Hangover. Once was funny, twice was more funnier. If this movie doesn't make you laugh, probably you are dead inside and should go listen to your Iron & Wine and wallow in your tiny black hole and lay on your pile of dirty clothes.
3 books purchased. Hey, you all know my motto. It's "You can never have enough wine". That doesn't pertain to this, but I stand by it all the same. If I could have another motto, it would be something about buying books when you're down. I've really cut back on my book buying the past year or so, but sometimes desperate times call for desperate book buying.
3 viewings of Twilight in as many days. I might be slightly obsessed. But Lord help me, Edward cheers me up. One of these days I'm going to learn how to use PhotoShop (right after I finish that Time Machine, find the cure for Aids, and win the lottery) and figure out how to super impose my face over Kristen Stewart's. I would smile a lot more than she does too. I mean, hello? What on earth do you have to be so damn glum and gloomy about, Bella? Do you not see the fine specimen standing next to you? Show some respect.
1 baby calf (is that redundant?) fed. Hey, if feeding a baby farm animal doesn't cheer you up, I don't know what will. And ok, the truth is that I was terrified of the cow (whose name, coincidentally, is Bella), and spent most of my time feeding her backing away and crying for my mommy, but in the picture I look like I know what I'm doing, so that's the official story.
Also, do we like my new dress? Or do we think it makes me look slightly like a baby cow? Jury is still out.
1FO! What? A FO? Yes! A FO! I actually knit for the first time all summer yesterday, and managed to finish this scarf. Never you mind that I started it 6 months ago and it was almost finished. Never you mind that it's garter stitch and required no thought whatsoever. Never you mind that it's 105 degrees outside and I have no need for a scarf. Small victories, ok? I'm taking them where I can get them. It felt so good to feel the yarn in my fingers again. I'd forgotten how therapeutic knitting can be.
Also, I'd like to formally apologize to DaisyMum, winner of my blogiversary contest, who has yet to receive her socks. I have no excuse for my laziness. The first sock is done, and the second one is the next project I'm going to CO for.
105 hugs given to Sam. This number is an approximation, as I was not keeping a tally. This dog is good for very few things. She eats trash, and spills her water all over the place, and chases the cats, not to mention eats the cat poop, and she barks in the middle of the night sometimes for no reason, and she licks the pillows on the bed so when we get in bed at night our pillows are soaking wet, and she smells, and she stands RIGHT BEHIND you when you're cooking to try and catch any spare bit of food that may go flying (even cabbage) causing you to step on her almost constantly, and she hogs the bed, and she leaves her toys everywhere so that you are always tripping or rolling over them, and she follows you into the bathroom so that you can't even get a moment of privacy to do your business. I'm telling you, this dog isn't winning any awards or contests. But, the one thing this dog is good for is squeezing, hugging, snuggling and kissing. She will curl up right on top of you, spooning up next to you and just lay there and let you pet her. It's one of the only times she is calm, and also one of the only times she's not getting on my last good nerve.
Don't let this picture fool you. She cute, but she naughty.
And finally, if all else should fail, I've got the piece de resistance (and if I knew how to type accents, that would have them, so please just imagine them there)....
7, the number of times I watched this video (no joke, I really watched it that many times), although it sufficiently cheered me up after only 1 viewing. If you haven't seen this video yet - what, do you live under a rock? - you should take the 5 minutes and watch it. It's awesome. It gave me chills and brought a happy tear to my eye.
That concludes my defunkifying formula, but I have some more numbers to throw atcha. 3 - number of blogs I have pre-written and floating around in my head. I will try to get them down and out sooner rather than later. 4 - number of days until I leave for Dallas for a few days to hang with my cousins before departing for Michigan. 6 - number of days until I see the "new" Harry Potter movie with my girl Chicken. It's been torture waiting this long, but I know it will all be worth it! 47 - my excitement level, on a scale of 1-10, about the movie. 19 - the number of pretzels I ate while composing this blog.
The Cowboy and I got a wild hair up our asses on Monday night and bought a canoe.
Now, to be honest, we'd been discussing buying one for a few weeks, and once The Cowboy gets an idea in his head, you're hard pressed to get him to think of anything else until that idea comes to fruition. So he decided we needed a boat (of some kind), and we obviously couldn't afford a real boat, so a canoe/kayak/paddle boat became our options. We did some research, looked at a few places and found one we liked, so we bought it. We're kooks like that.
We took it out to the lake for the first time today, and it was a blast! They don't make canoes like they used to, and for that I am thankful. The canoes of my childhood were very narrow and tippy. I mean, you stood up, the boat flipped. You leaned over, the boat flipped. You picked your nose, the boat flipped.
I'm pretty sure we both were terrified of tipping it over and balancing and getting used to all that and rowing. In fact, I feared this canoe would be the end of us. I could all too easily imagine him yelling at me to paddle harder or faster or more on the left or that every time I moved I was tipping us and he was getting frustrated. I'm serious. I had nightmares. And he admitted he thought so too.
But lucky for us, this canoe is fricking awesome. We didn't tip it once, and the lake we were on today was busy and choppy, but we manged to stay right side up.
We paddled around.
We swam for a bit.
We relaxed for a bit.
We stopped for lunch and had a picnic. Then we paddled some more.
We love our new canoe and we will be getting a lot of use out of it!
Well, I love it. The Cowboy (and his chins) doesn't look too thrilled here, but he assured me he likes our new canoe, and that he can't wait to go fishing.
Happy Birthday America! Hope everyone has a great Independence Day!!
