A Trip to Colorado

A couple weeks ago, we jumped a plane and flew out to visit Mark's brother in New Mexico. We spent one night of the trip in Durango, Colorado, where I drank a few too many mojitios. But that's another story for another day. Even though it wasn't exactly cold, the fresh mountain air did us some good (or some bad, if you factor in how the altitude makes it that much harder to breathe/consume alcohol). Nothing that a McDonald's hamburger around noon the next day couldn't fix!

OCD

My in-laws are visiting this weekend, so we've been working on the house and getting things cleaned up every evening after work. Mark has been painting the guest bathroom, replacing the hardware, mowing the lawn and even doing the laundry (I got Husband of the Year on my hands, friends.) Me on the other hand, I'm doing this, which is obviously a very important activity:

Before:

After:
Color coordinating my book shelf of course! A top priority. But I am pretty proud of our guest room, which is ready and waiting for ANY guests that come our way (hint, hint). I snagged a new coverlet at TJ Max this weekend and I feel like it really completed the room.

And a great big Hello to everyone who is still reading, since I've been missing for quite some time now :)

Friday Friends to Follow

Friday! Finally. And hey there October, didn't expect to see you so soon!

In honor of us being a mere eight hours from the weekend, here are two of my favorite friends' blogs to go check out today!


Everyone go check out Mia-mi Likee and follow MB as she posts speedo spottings and drug deals in her new home of Miami!


And then go check out KD of Present Considered for all things gifty, homey and booky. She'll keep your apartment dressed in its best, your friends' birthday gifts at the top of the list, and your bookshelves well stocked with the latest (often depressing) read.

(and how cute is her cat Maurice when he sleeps?! Gus is a fan).

Happy weekend to all. Hook 'em horns :)

Oh, hi.

Hey there Internets. It's me, Amanda. The bad blogger.

I have all kinds of things to write about, including our fabulous wedding pictures that we recently got back from our photographer. But it seems a little overwhelming to start recapping the wedding, so I've been avoiding it. So I figured why not get back in the swing of things with my oh so (not) favorite topic........ weight.

So we got this super cool electronic scale as a wedding gift (what kind of crazy would buy someone a scale as a wedding gift, you ask? well.. we actually registered for this. so I guess we are the crazies!) Mark stepped on it a few weeks ago and even announced to me last week that he's already lost 4 pounds of post-wedding-weight-gain. I, on the other hand, have been avoiding that scale like the plague. It sits on our bathroom floor, taunting me every day and just begging me to step on it with its cool digital screen and weight accuracy right down to the tenth of a pound and handy-dandy recording feature to remind you how much you weighed last time you stepped on it. No thank you Fancy Scale, I'd rather not know how many LB's I've gained in the 2+ months since the wedding, during which time my food pyramid has consisted pretty heavily of french fries and skittles.

Well I bit the bullet this past week and now have been stepping on Fancy Scale every morning (after peeing, of course). The number today (post El Chico for dinner last night and Chick-fil-a for lunch on Saturday) was a good solid ten pounds higher than the number I fill in on medical forms and at the DMV. Sigh. No wonder my pants all feel tighter and those cute green shorts I wore on the honeymoon don't even zip up anymore.

So today I start over. Get back on track. Quit eating crap every day. Visit the gym more than once every other week. I am going to loosely follow weight watchers and see where it gets me this week. And by loosely I mean I'm not paying to sign up, but instead keeping track of it all myself, on little post-it notes all over my desk and purse. Because I've paid for it for months and months before and that cute little web page with all the bells and whistles just doesn't keep me committed. My too-tight green shorts are keeping me committed this time!

I'm telling you this, dear Internet friends, to help me stay accountable. In the spirit of "if you write something down you'll stick to it" (shout out, Oprah), I'm hoping this will get me back into my non-fat jeans by the holidays. Anyone else out there have any Stick With It tips, for WW or otherwise?

Thanks for listening... I'm off to eat my Lean Cuisine.

Next up.. much more exciting posts with pretty wedding pictures :)

A Pug In a Peacoat

Umm... this could be the cutest thing I've seen in a long time! Or how about this little guy in his trench coat?

RoverDog

Must get small puppy, asap. Oh wait, I already have two labs who have taken to eating out of the cat box. Scratch that.

Oh hey there, Radar

Just trying to stay afloat here at the Kick Yer Boots HQ, thanks to Ms. Hermine. I really wanted to run errands at lunch, but instead we are calling in the troops to deliver lunch. Start building the ark!

PWC and Shade 4 Hair

Post-wedding chop.

For the past seventeen months, I have been growing out my hair. I've gotten probably 3 real haircuts during this time, all of which were just trims to try and keep some sort of semblance to the loooong hair. I like my long hair, really I do, but the washing and the drying and the straightening and the constant tangley mess that it turns into every single day was really wearing me out. So I did what I always do when I get to this point in any hair-growing-out journey. I frantically called any and every salon I can find until I can find someone who can get me in today for a haircut right now.

I decided I might as well find a salon in McKinney, so I can have a hair place near home. So I goggled around and narrowed my choices down to two salons, based purely on how nice their websites were. (side note: the one I didn't chose was Tangerine Salon in Allen, which is offering $75 worth of services for $35 in today's Groupon. I kinda sorta totally want to buy it for next time!). I ended up calling the one with the lower price list, and setup an appointment for the following afternoon. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go significantly shorter (maybe shoulder length?) or just cut off a couple inches and do some serious hair maintenance, so I figured I would just wing it when I sat in the chair.

Which is pretty much exactly what I did. My stylist was Brandon, the probably-gay-just-moved-down-to-Texas-from-Beverly-Hills-and-claims-to-know-all-the-trends guy with the slightly messy, almost faux hawk hair cut. He asked me what I wanted to do, and I sort of mumbled that I liked it long but wanted it shorter and wanted some shape to it without too many layers all over the place. What does that even mean? I don't know. But Brandon knew. We went to wash my hair and while I was in the chair, another girl who had just gotten her hair colored came over and asked him what he thought of her new highlights. He point blank told her he didn't like them! He was like "you did too much on top and I liked it better before." Ouch.

So we make our way back to the chair and he combs mine out and starts chopping. We decided he'd take about 2 inches off, but other than that I pretty much let him do whatever. He asked me if I wanted a "Brazilian Triangle" cut, which I guess is all the rage in California but only girls with long hair can do it. I told him to make me a subtle version of it, so my hair now makes a subtle triangle shape in the back. (??) He styled it by drying it in tiny sections with a round brush, and I wish I could explain how he did it. After drying each piece, he would unwind the hair off the brush by flinging it and twisting it in the air so it fell kind of backwards and landed with a slight curve. It was pretty fancy!

Oh and Brandon also told me that I have Shade 4 brown hair, which is apparently the very best shade to have and all the girls who want to grow brunette ask for shade 4. Shade 3 is to mousey and shade 5 is too dark. Conveniently, Brandon also has shade 4 hair, so we are now BFFs forever. He made me promise I wouldn't color my hair until I absolutely have to, which hello I wasn't doing anyway. Hair coloring is too pricey for this girls budget!

So anyways! Here's how the haircut came out. I wish I had better pictures to show. In fact, I'm slightly embarrassed to even put these up. The before pic was taken at work with my phone just before I left for the salon. The pic is blurry, I look angry and my hair looks gross. The after was also taken with the phone, but in the car at the gas station while Mark was pumping gas. And I look startled in it. I wish I had a back picture so you could all see the triangle (?) but that will have to be another day.


And that, my friends, is the post wedding chop. Not a chop so much, but boy does a little shape go a long way!