I Hate Packing

I finally made it.  As of 4:00 yesterday afternoon, I don't have to go work until July 7!  Yay vacation!  Tomorrow we leave for Galveston with my family to stay in this gem of a house on the water.  I can't wait to get there.  But before I do, I still have to do all this:

1. Pack.  Ugh.  My least favorite thing to do ever

2. Take a bridesmaid dress to get altered.

3.  Meet Mark for lunch (yay!)

4. Find this hair product somewhere.  I bought some in college and my little bottle just ran out.  It's perfect for the beach!  So far I've tried Wal-Mart, Ulta and Target and no luck. Does it not exist anymore?

5.  Play with Gus before leaving him for 5 days!  Poor little guy.

6. Clean.  I have leaving town with a dirty apartment!

This time tomorrow I'll be en route to the beach!  Which means, yet again, it will be a long time before I post again..

The Office

I saw a picture of Sadie's work space on her blog and was intrigued. I love to see where people work and how they set up the spaces that they spend 40+ hours in each week. Like that lamp that she has on her desk? I have the same one at home in my kitchen (like the shower curtains, our tastes are one in the same!). So I snapped some shots of my little corner of the office to share with everyone. Please do the same in your offices! I need some new ideas to spruce this place up.

Please try to read my tiny font...

I see now that it is virtually impossible to read all that! Bah! You can see my little nook in the room, which has three desks in it: me, Marketing Girl and Annual Giving Girl (Sarah). Sarah and my desk back up to each other, so she is right behind me. You can barely see, but I've got pictures of me and Mark, my family at my UT graduation, a postcard from Sadie and some pottery that I painted back in college. Ok... now your turn! Show me where you work.

Last week I worked outside of the office.  Specifically from these two chairs on a white sand beach in Sarasota, FL.  It was fabulous.  Except for when the hotel concierge told us it would be a "short cab ride" to the beach and it actually ended up costing us $50 round trip!

Most of the time in our hotel room, we had this picture perfect view of the Sarasota Marina:

Except for when our view was this:

It seems they needed to do some painting outside, every single afternoon.

Disposable Cameras

Friends,

Do you even remember life before the digital camera? Remember when everyone would get a disposable camera and you would have to write your name with a sharpie on it so that you wouldn't get it mixed up with everyone else's? Last weekend I went to a Bachelorette Party for my good friend Stephanie. We went up to her parents' lake house near Gun Barrel City and spent three days working on our tans. I forgot to pack my digital camera, so I grabbed a disposable to document the weekend, like any good bridesmaid would. I had forgotten how much fun they are.

You can't take as many pictures as you want. You only get 24 chances and you can't review them to make sure the lighting was good and that no one got cropped out. You have to hold the little button to charge the flash for a few seconds before you snap your shot. You have to wind the film after each picture. The quote of the weekend was me yelling out "wait I have to wind my camera" every time I tried to take a pic. Everyone was forced to hold their poses for a little longer. Oh and there is no zoom. Well, actually there is. You walk a few steps closer.

There is also no instant gratification with disposable cameras. You have to take them to CVS, wait a few days, and then go pick up the prints. Who remembers life when it was like this? I am excited to get it developed though. There's that anticipation of all the pictures I get to see in a mere four days. I haven't felt that since I got my homecoming pictures developed back in 2000.

The B-ette party was a hit. We had an anatomically correct cake and a "surprise" lingerie shower. We played pin the pen15 on a poster with Mark's head taped to it (who all caught my reference to the Pen 15 club, circa 6th grade?). We spent hours laying on the dock with our swimsuits untied, all trying to avoid the strap lines for our dresses. We floated in the water on noodles that we unfortunately discovered were full of cockroaches (NOT cool!). We sat in the hot tub at night and talked about child birth entirely too often. We danced around to Whiteney Houston and sang all the songs from Moulin Rouge about seventeen times. We all got a little more excited for the wedding next month.

Baaaaack

Hi Blogging Friends,

After a brief trip to Sarasota, FL with NO computer and NO way to check email, I am back. I was so disconnected from the world. I now understand why people who don't sit at a computer all day need Blackberries. I felt so lost.

I have lots to share about my trip, such as cab ride adventures, homeless people laughing in my face and $50 trips to the beach. A free public beach, no mind you. But alas, now is not the time. Today is my one day in the office this week, so I guess I need to play catch up.

Stay tuned though, there is more to come.

Oh and for the record, my apartment is STILL NOT REPAIRED from the flood. Oh how I hate you, leasing office girls and your hollow promises.

Summer Do

This one's for Meredith. I cut my hair last week and ever since then it has seemed to me to be VERY SHORT. But you know how you never really know how a haircut looks until you see a picture of yourself? Well this is the first one I've taken so far (by me in a mirror no less), and it just doesn't look that short! It feels like much less, trust me. I cut almost four inches off, according to my trusty stylist. It's great for the summer, since it takes about ten minutes less to blow dry.

And for those of you losing sleep over the state of my apartment, they finally got all the carpet replaced and cleaned last night. It looks very nice. The silver lining of the whole ordeal is that I got all the carpet cleaned, not just the part that got wet. So it looks like brand new carpet throughout! The next step is repairing and retexturing the ceiling where the water came through. This will take place next Tuesday and Wednesday. The good news is I'll be on a beach in Florida while that's happening! I hope to come home to a completely finished project. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Birthday Wishes

Her birthday may be over in her neck of the woods, but over here it's still June 2nd and this sassy expat just turned 26!

Happy Birthday to my carpool buddy who truly understands the greatness of the Mix 2 CD.  Happy birthday to the only girl who thought it was a good idea to walk alongside George Bush to Katherine's house.  Happy birthday to a fellow drill teamer who hated the feathered fans as much as I did.  Happy birthday to someone who can appreciate my long toes.  Happy birthday to a cook who uses chow mein noodles instead of sugar.  

Happy birthday to my best friend.

Drying Out

Friday started out as a very good day. It was our last day of school at work, so we had a mimosa breakfast first thing that morning and then a catered lunch was brought in for everyone at noon. It was overall a very casual day, as the teachers were all closing up their classrooms for the summer. I even got my official new raise to go along with my new job title! My boss let us leave a whole fifteen minutes early, so I was ready to start my weekend with a little Sex and the City action that night.

Everything went downhill from there. When I got home shortly before 4:00, I opened up my apartment door and noticed that all of my stuff had been moved to one side of the living room. My coffee table, desk chair, huge exercise ball, ipod speakers - it was all shoved over. And then there was this huge fan plugged in and blowing onto the carpet. I knew right away that there had been a flood. I found Gus hiding under the bed and started to panic that this was all somehow my fault. Did I leave water running? Did the dishwasher overflow? Washing machine? Toilet? No. Nothing was running when I left for work that morning. I checked my phone and sure enough I had a missed call from my complex. I listened to the message from the girl at the leasing office as she explained to me in her most upbeat voice that a water supply line in the apartment above me broke and the water came down into mine. The amount of cheer in her voice was equal to someone informing you that she had just gotten engaged. She was beyond friendly. I called her back and she explained that they had already wet vaced my place, pulled up the carpet and removed the carpet pads. Now all we had to do was wait for everything to dry out and then they would replace the pads and clean the carpet. This would take five days. In the meantime, I should just run this gigantic fan 24-7 so that it can all dry.

This put such a damper on my evening. I was so distraught after coming home to this mess, that I just changed clothes and left for the mall to meet Stephanie for the movie. On the way there, I called Mark and complained to him how my entire weekend was ruined, now that I had to deal with this ordeal. He did his best to cheer me up and I finally hung up in a huff, saying I’d call him after the movie. And then things got worse. I ran over a squirrel! I saw the little guy dart in front of me and then bump, smash, he was a puddle in my rearview mirror. I called Mark back, this time in tears, because I had just killed a furry little friend. He tried to assure me that it was probably a “mean rabid squirrel,” but I knew he was really a hardworking father squirrel on his way home to his family. I got to the mall and did a little retail therapy before meeting Stephanie for dinner in the food court. I was all convinced that I was going to eat something healthy for dinner, but that went out the window after the previous hour’s events. Hello Chickfila. We had a nice little meal and then joined the other 2,000 girls who were lined up at the mall to see SATC that night. It was a great flick! It cheered me up until I got home and saw that huge fan whirling in my disarrayed living room. The next day I packed up my stuff and Gus and I went to Plano to stay with my aunt and uncle, which is where we’ll be until tomorrow.

Whew.