Tomorrow is March and I've got to get at least 1 post in for February, so here it is....

I'm going to pretend like it hasn't been over a month since my last post. I'm going to pretend like I've been blogging this whole time, no one has missed me (which, let's face it, is probably the truth), and we will just all go on as usual. Ok? Thanks.

First, an update about my other blog that I told you about in my last post. If you're thinking that it is the reason I haven't been posting here, you're wrong. I've been totally neglecting that blog as well. In fact, I posted on it twice and then just sort of lost steam. See? It's a good thing I didn't tell anyone the address. Now I can just erase it and pretend it never happened. The blog, that is. The weight loss is going great! I'm down about 9 pounds last time I checked, and more importantly, I'm losing inches, so pants that haven't fit me in years are getting a second life! Yippee!!!!

Here is how my February went down.....

My Great Aunt Hazel celebrated her 87th birthday this month, and her children had a party for her up in Dallas. My mom, Betty Nuggs, came down for the festivities, as did several of her siblings. We had a great time eating, laughing, shopping and visiting. Here are some pics from the party.

Me and Nuggs at the party.

Me, mom, aunt, uncle, cousins and Great Aunt Hazel (center). Happy Birthday Aunt Hazel!

I bought some new fabulous cowboy boots while we were in Dallas. Actually, these are my first pair of cowboy boots. Shame on me, I've lived in Texas for nearly 4 years and have never owned a pair. I love these. They are cute and very comfortable.

The Cowboy bought me some beautiful flowers for Valentine's Day. My favorite - calla lilies.

Aggie took up residence in the laundry basket, after we had to throw away her dog bed because she chewed it up. Hopefully the laundry basket lasts a little longer.

My newest knitting creation. It's a scarf made out of a bunch of leftover pieces of yarn from various projects. Thank goodness I hung on to all of them! I tried to make the "theme" of the scarf green, and then threw in some complimenting colors.

Rather than knit this scarf length-wise, as with most scarves, I knit it width-wise. I cast on 180(ish) stitches on size 11 circs and changed yarn every single row. I absolutely love the way this turned out. I have enough odds and ends to make at least one more, possibly two. What will I do with them you ask? Drum roll, please................ I am opening an Etsy store!!! I having been knitting and sewing like crazy lately, (hence no blogging) in an attempt to get a stockpile of things ready to sell in my Etsy store. I am hoping to have everything up and running over spring break - which is 2 weeks away. I will be sure to let you all know when it's open, and post a link. In the meantime, here's a sneak preview. It's my store banner.

Speaking of new exciting things, Lexey Rhea was born this past week!!

Congratulations to proud parents Johnny & Tiff, and big sister Sydney! I can't wait to meet little Lexey.

It snowed in Austin this past week. Like, a lot. Serious accumulation. It's the most snow I've seen down here since I've been here, and I heard it was the most snow that they've seen here since 1985. Here are some pictures, taken from school, where I was stuck all day because they didn't cancel school. Boo.

The kids had a blast, though. We took them outside in the morning and let them run around and play in it. Many of them had never seen actual snow before, so it was fun to watch them. Someone tried to make a snow angel, but there wasn't quite enough snow for that, and it ended up being a dirt angel.

Today, it's sunny and 65. I love this state!!

That's my February in a nutshell. I would promise to try and write more, but we both know I don't mean it. So in case I don't blog again until the end of March, I hope you all have a great month!

A Very Stinky Christmas

Yesterday Baby Stinky Pants came to spend the afternoon with me while mommy had her hair did and daddy was golfing. She's 18 months now, and at a really cute and fun age. It's been awhile since I've posted any pictures of her, so I will let these speak for themselves.

Chillin' on the couch, laughing at The Cowboy.

(Note: please disregard all the dog hair on the couch and don't judge. Our husky, Aggie, sheds her coat twice a year and she's in full on shed mode right now. And yes, we let our dogs sit on the couch and lay in the bed. More like they let us sit on the couch and lay in the bed with them.)

Cheese!

Help! She's fallen and she can't get up.

Posing by the tree. (Her mom said they couldn't get a good picture of her for a Christmas card. They obviously didn't call me.)

She wouldn't let go of the Wii remote, in case you were wondering.

Looking like her daddy.

She's very curious about everything.

And now she has two Wii remotes.

Hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season and that all your plans, preparations and parties are in full swing!

Babies and Boobies and Clowns! Oh My!

Or should I say, Babies and Boobies and Clowns! Nachos! Or maybe I shouldn't talk about clowns, boobies and babies in the same sentence or the same blog. But I'm going to. I'm all about pushing the boundaries of normal social conduct.

So Saturday was Halloween. In case you weren't aware of it, I'm here to remind you. You're welcome. As promised, I have pictures of myself and The Cowboy in our costumes, as well as The Cuteness and Stinky in theirs, AND of The Cuteness in her hat. It's a picture bonanza here.

The Cowboy decided about a month and a half ago that he was going to go as a clown. Now, let me just tell you all something about The Cowboy, if I haven't said it already. I'm gonna let you in on a little secret about him. He is All About Business. When he sets his mind on something, ANYthing, he is going to follow it through to the bitter end and obsess about it until it's perfect.

Guitar building, pickle making, getting a TV signal on the computer in the bedroom, not wearing a belt to work, locksmithing, boycotting Sprint - whatever it is, you can bet that when he decides he's on board - he is On Board.

So, he wanted to be a clown. He searched the Halloween stores and the innernets to find just the perfect costume. He purchased props, including a water squirting flower, a horn and a "BANG" gun. He researched clown makeup and balloon animal craftmanship. I'm not making this up. Here is the final product:

Meet "Robert" the Clown. He thought it was heeeeeeelarious that his clown name was Robert. Sometimes I don't get his humor.

Meanwhile, I couldn't decide what the hell to be for Halloween. I was back and forth between a witch (boring) and one of the girls from the Robert Palmer videos from the 80s (figured I'd have to spend all night explaining it to my friends who, I love, but are from Texas and therefor listened to Randy Travis in the 80s and not Robert Palmer....not that I'm disrespecting Randy Travis). The costumes both involved the same basic black dress that I've had since I was in high school (and still fits! thanks to stretchy material, but still, a victory), and I would accessorize with either a pair of striped tights and a hat, or a bunch of hussy makeup and the guitar from our Wii Rock Band. It was a toss up. As I said, I'd always wanted to do the Robert Palmer thing, but I figured the humor of it would be lost on my countrified friends, so I nixed that. And the witch thing was easy enough, but not original or creative. So at the last minute, I threw together this costume. I figured my countrified friends could appreciate this.

Rodeo Clown! We already had clown makeup. I had the hat, the shorts and the shoes. I bought the striped socks, the bandannas, and the shirt, which is actually kind of cute and I might consider wearing it again. Overall I spent about 2 days putting this costume together, as opposed to the nearly 2 months The Cowboy spent. That's the difference between us. But we looked cute, didn't we?

You know who else looked cute? That's right - The Cuteness herself and her best friend Baby Stinky Pants. They were a chicken and a bunny, respectively.

They also enjoyed Robert's balloon animals, after they changed out of their costumes.

Maddie really liked the hat that I made for her.

She liked it so much that she kept bringing me beers all night.

See? This is why you have kids.

(and actually, I'm only joking about her bringing me beer....she was bringing them to her father......again, just kidding, she was playing with the ice)

My friends and I are not young anymore, so it wasn't a particularly late night, aided by the fact that we got an extra hour. But I still had to get up at the BCOD on Sunday morning to be in Austin for the Race for the Cure. It was not easy to get up and get moving that early - but I am so glad I did. Thanks to my friends and family I raised $225 for the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and I walked/jogged the 5k with my friend Lesli from work.

It was an amazing experience. Thank you to everyone who supported me!

As you can see I had a very fun and fulfilling weekend. This coming weekend The Cowboy and I are going camping. In the meantime, I've been working on a recipe for you for later this week. And I've been inspired (bullied) to try cro-shit again. Standby for details regarding that train wreck.

Gratuitous Stinky Shot!

Hope you all have a fabulous week, Dahlings.

Burn baby burn. Vacation inferno.

Oh hi. I'm back from my vacation to the pits of hell. Er, I mean Palo Duro Canyon. Same difference. Pardon me if I'm in a salty mood. I have to work tomorrow. Boooooooooo.

So yeah, it was hot. Hotter than hell. Hot hot hot. Ole ole, ole ole. Let's see how many stupid song references I can throw in here.

Palo Duro Canyon was beautiful, don't get me wrong. But we spent 10 hours in the car to arrive at a place where you had to get up at 6:00 am every morning (which, let's just be honest for a second, isn't my idea of a "vacation") just to be able to actually see anything cool in the canyon, because by 10:00 it was 110+ degrees. Every. Single. Day.

So as you might imagine a lot of our time was spent in the wonderful air-conditioned oasis-like coolness of the camper. Praise the Lord for AC. Because of this, rather than a bunch of beautiful scenic photos of the park to show you, I have a ton of videos of Sydney. Because that's what we did. Played with the kid and took naps and ate junk food (the napping and junk food are totally my idea of a vacation). So here you go..... scenes from my vacation.

In this first one, we see Sydney growing up just a little too fast and exploring my makeup bag.




This next one features me tickling her. I love the way she laughs, and at one point, she snorts. Which is always funny. You can also hear Tiff in the background looking for the fly swatter. Here's another downside to Palo Duro - flies EVERYWHERE.




And my personal favorite, us quizzing Sydney on what certain animals/people "say". We asked her this no fewer than 20 times and it never got old.




And ok, I admit that we did get up early a few mornings and go hiking.




















And the canyon was lovely.















And I took some pictures.


























































Of things other than Sydney, I mean. Such as The Cowboy's back covered in flies.




















I told you it was bad.




























































As I said, it's back to school for me tomorrow. Summer was fun, but I'm looking forward to getting back into a routine and seeing my kids again. Hope you all had a great summer too! (although it's hard to imagine that summer is "over" when it's still 100 degrees outside every day....oh, Michigan falls, how I miss you)

Double D

This blog is not about breasts. If you've seen the title and have come here looking for information or pictures pertaining to hooters, fun bags, jugs, golden bozos, or any of the like, I am sorry to disappoint you, but you've come to the wrong blog. AND the wrong lady.

Rather, this blog is about my trips this past week to the 2 D's. Dallas and Detroit. First let me just say that moving away from where you were born, raised and lived for 27 years and then going back and trying to cram in 27 years of friends, family and former co-worker visits in 4 and a half days is exhausting. I never got so little sleep in my life and if there's one thing we know about me, it's that I need my sleep. So if I didn't get to see you while I was there, or if I did see you, but not enough, I am sorry.

I have compiled a series of highlights, lowlights, and observations pertaining to my trips.

Lowlight
Started the vacation off my locking my keys in my car upon my arrival in Dallas. Along with my luggage. All. Locked. In. After using a few choice expletives, and Benny trying his hardest to break into my car with a coat hanger (I'm sure his neighbors loved that), I decided to sleep on it and call a Locksmith in the morning. The Locksmith comes, does the exact same thing I'd seen Benny doing the night before (only with an official looking un-bent coat hanger thingy) and within 60 seconds - POP. $50 later and I have my things and my keys. Great way to begin the vacation.

Highlight
Got to see the Detroit Tigers kick the Texas Rangers' asses at Ranger Stadium with the cousins. 13-5 and it wasn't even that exciting. I like a little more action in my baseball games, but this at least somewhat made up for the Tigers losing so badly to the Astros when The Cowboy and I went down to Houston.


































Me, Matthew and Ang.

Observation
Dallas is just about as hot as Austin. And the baseball game was outside. Hi, I'm Sweaty.















Highlight
Ann Arbor is even more beautiful in the summer than I remember. Sadly, I don't have a picture to show you. But everything is even more green and wonderful than my memories showed. Austin is a pretty green area of Texas, but I truly had forgotten how verdant (big word alert) everything looks up there this time of year. Not to mention that it was barely 80 degrees every day and actually pleasant to be outdoors.

Lowlight
It got cold at night. Friday night we sat outside on my friend Lisa's patio and drank and laughed (and laughed, and laughed....oh, and laughed) and it got down into the 60's. I was ccccccccold. I could see my breath. It hasn't taken me long to acclimate to Texas weather.















Apparently, when I'm cold, I look like a thug.

Observation
At first I had trouble remembering what radio stations I used to listen to, so I did a scan and found a country station. Country stations up in Detroit are WAY different than the ones down here. They play almost completely different music. I heard a few songs that I may have heard down here, but on the whole, it was different stuff. Weird.

Highlight




















Got to eat at The Heidelberg, one of my favorite Ann Arbor restaurants, with some of my favorite people.















Me, Marcie, Lisa and Charlene (more blogs to come on these clowns SOON)

Lowlight
Lisa (and I, maybe) couldn't stop laughing and they almost kicked us out.





























































Oh wait, that wasn't a lowlight. It was another highlight. And they didn't really almost kick us out. We were the only people in there. We always are the only people in there. I don't know how that place stays open. I also don't know how they make such delicious pork chops.

Observation
Labatt's Blue Light and Bell's Oberon Ale both taste just as wonderful and delicious as I remember them tasting. I wasn't sure of that after the first one. Or the second. I needed to make absolute certain of it, so I drank quite a few.








































Yep, still tasty.

Lowlight




















I didn't absolutely love the Harry Potter movie*. I didn't hate it. It was ok. And I think if I watched it again I would enjoy it more the second time. But the problem is that I am a HP purist. And I'd just re-read the book, which is clearly a mistake and setting myself up for failure. I know they can't possibly include everything from the books in the movies, but I feel (since you asked) there are certain vital pieces of information which were just barely touched on or left out all together. There are going to be a lot of holes to fill in the beginning of the next movie. I'll shut up now, I'm even annoying myself with all this HP movie talk. Let's just say I was disappointed.

*(For those of you who don't know the story.....my friend from high school Sarah and I have seen every HP movie together since they came out. She flew down to Texas 2 years ago to see Order of the Phoenix, so it was my turn to fly up for Half Blood Prince. The movie came out 3 weeks ago, but Sarah and I waited not so patiently so we could see it together. A lot of hype. A lot of buildup.)

Highlight
I got to spend lots of quality time with Sarah and her girls.




















This is Cate. She will be 4 in a few weeks.




















She had been practicing her "rope tricks" for weeks and was very excited to show me. I'm not sure what Sarah and her husband have told Cate about Texas, but I do know it involves rope tricks, horses and cowboys. Is this how all northerners (read: Yankees) see us?




















Cate is very stylish.




















This is Ellie, Cate's sister. We call her Elbow. She was 1 in April. I've seen some cute kids. I've featured them on my blog.




















This kid? Takes the cute cake.





















I can barely form sentences about how much I love her.





















Sarah is a good mommy.

Observation




















The apron I made for Sarah is my best work yet. Sarah loved it. She's requested one for Cate.

Lowlight
Lisa's precious and wonderful children, Maddie




















and Abby (whose bed I slept in)




















had head lice, unbeknownst to us at the time of my overnight visit. So Lisa had to call me and tell me and apologize for my potential exposure to the little bugs.

Highlight
I don't think I actually got the lices, but just to be safe, Heather and I bought a kit and treated my hair anyway.




















If you've never had to treat lice in your hair or someone else's - be thankful. It's a pain in the arse, and I didn't even have any bugs or eggs in my hair. If I had, I imagine it would have been worse. Heather and I made the most out of it, though, with some more help from Oberon and some good old fashioned trashy reality teevee.

Observation
Gavin is Heather's kid 100%. (or maybe 50%, I never was any good at maths and reproduction)





















His buckets contained, at various points throughout the evening: blueberries, popcorn, chicken, fries and lettuce. I think we have a future "Monster" in the making.















And when those snacks weren't enough, he improvised.




















Gavin's fashion sense leaves a lot to be desired, but at least he's comfortable.


Highlight
Had lunch at Zingerman's, and I can't recall the last time I ate there. It had been years.


















Lowlight
Needed to take out a small loan to afford my sandwich, and remembered why I didn't eat there very often even when I lived in Ann Arbor.














Observation
The #54, Wayne's Inheritance (not pictured), was just as delicious as it used to be, and (grudgingly) worth the $12.00.


Highlight
I got to see most of my family while there.

Lowlight
I don't have any pictures of them.

Observation




















I took this picture for My Lady, who would kill me if she knew that I didn't actually eat there, just stopped by long enough to get a picture. So the official story (if she ever asks) is that I ate there and it was delicious and the proprietor (who we call Lai Lai) is alive and well.

Lowlight
On the plane ride back to Dallas, the kid (11 or 12 years old) sitting directly behind me sneezed no fewer than 30 times. Loudly. And I'm not sure he covered his mouth once. He could have, I suppose. I wasn't about to turn around and look at him and risk getting sneezed on in the face. But every time I'd lean my head against the window and try to doze off.....AHHHHCHOOOOOO. And all I could think about was airborn germs and SARS and bacteria and getting sick. No rest for the weary on the plane.

Highlight
I saw Eddie Montgomery, from the country duo Montgomery Gentry, at the airport. In fact, I'm pretty sure he was on my flight. But I for sure stood near him durring baggage claim, and also while we were waiting for our rides. My ride came in the form of Ang and Benny, his in the form of his monstrous tour bus with a sign that said "Eddie Montgomery" on the front, and "Montgomery Gentry" on the back.




















He did not have on his big black hat or trench coat. In fact, he was dressed like a regular dude. He had on a backwards baseball cap, shorts and a t-shirt. He was just standing there with another guy (not Gentry) chatting and waiting for his bag. No bodyguards or entourage or anything. I guess he's not that high profile, and can still travel without being recognized.

Confession
I did not recognize him at first. It wasn't until I saw him get on the tour bus that I actually looked at him and thought it might be him, and not until I looked him up on the interwebs that I realized that it was, in fact, Eddie Montgomery. Otherwise you know I would have gotten my camera out and taken a picture. I have no shame.

In Summary...
It was a great trip, if a little short and rushed. Thanks to everyone who put me up, paid for a meal, drove me to or from the airport, and combed my hair for bugs.

The Cowboy and I are off on another vacation next week, this time to Palo Duro Canyon. It's my last week of summer vacation, and then it's back to work for me.

Sniffle.