Monday, April 20, 2009

Fours

The lovely Sara unofficially tagged me on this little activity. And since she bought me a margarita last week, I figured I couldn't let her down. Here's what you do:

1. Go to where you keep your photos on your computer.
2. Pick the fourth folder.
3. Pick the fourth photo.
4. Share four things about the image (I added this one, to make this have four steps. Seemed fitting!)



1. This was taken in the summer of 2007, at the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. (in case you can't tell.. we chopped off poor Abe's entire body).
2. It's a pic of me and my three siblings (and a random tourist featured on the left).
3. This was on a night tour of the monuments around the city.
4. I secretly LOVE this photo because ohmygosh, look how tan I am!? Oh, summer. I can't wait.

Friday, April 17, 2009

The Lone Ranger

Two posts in one morning? Yeah, it's been that kind of day. I'm the only one in my office today. My boss took a vacation day and the other two girls I work with are both at conferences this morning, so I'm holding down the fort over here. I took advantage of the quiet time to completely clean out some file cabinets. I've been working on it for going on 4 hours now and I'm pretty proud of my progress! But now its lunch time and I am without a lunch today. It's raining SO HARD that I don't want to go out and get anything, or walk next door to get something out of the school cafeteria. But my tummy is really grumbling. What's a girl to do?

TGIF

How glad am I that today is Friday!? Four day weeks always feel so much longer than usual ones, and this week has been no exception. Stephanie is in town from California, so we're meeing up at her favorite place for dinner tonight. Any guesses from the audience on where that is? Mi Cocina in Highland Park, of course! It wouldn't be a visit from Steph without hitting up the HPV MiCo.

Look at this cute little guy. Happy Friday!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The Details

I would like to clarify. I did not change the tire last week. I got out of my car and said about 381 Oh My God's while Kelly kept saying "it's okay, it's okay." To which I replied "Oh my god." Then, after about 2.5 minutes of this, before the shock could wear off and before the tears could really start, my guardian angel appeared. He drove a red pick up truck and wore a work shirt with his name embroidered on it.

David.



David quickly got to work finding my jack (beats me where it was?), taking off the tire, getting my spare down from under the car, and whipping it back on the car. All while Kelly and I cracked jokes on the side of the road. David got really dirty and covered in grease and other car goop. Luckily the entire back of my 4Runner was filled with nine bags of clothing I've been hauling around for the last month, meaning to take to Good Will. So I passed him my 2002 Delta Gamma Anchorsplash shirt to wipe his hands on. I told him he could keep it. I owed him.



About ten minutes into David's tire changing extravaganza, another pick up pulled up behind us. It was another friendly guy, checking to make sure we were okay. I told him David seemed to have it under control, but he hung around and watched anyways. I think he wanted to be in on the excitement. Once the spare was on, he jumped out with his air pressure gauge tool and checked the air pressure. It was so low it didn't even register. So he advised that I drive the three miles to Crobsytown and put some air in it. This I knew how to do. But I didn't have the little tool thingy, so he gladly gave me his. I told him I owed him one, the next time I saw him. So on we went on our way. Once we got to the gas station in town, I got out to put some air in the tire. David showed up a few minutes later, just to make sure we were still doing okay.



All the while through this saga, Kelly and I are on our phones, giving the boyfriends, brother and dad a play-by-play. It went something like this: "yes, we are changing the tire now. or um... he is changing it." Mark felt bad that I was stranded on the side of the road, but was more bummed out because he had a sore throat and a cough (gee thanks.) Wes was panicking about these two guys who had stopped to help us ("how old are they?! do they look like they are going to kill ya'll?") My brother just laughed at us. And my Dad wasn't concerned at all that his two daughters were alone on the side of the road in the literal middle of nowhere, a mere 30 minutes away from darkness. He said once he heard that we were in West Texas he wasn't worried because "people are nice in West Texas."

So, thanks to some help from a couple Good Samaritans, we survived the ordeal and got to Lubbock with a story to tell. On the drive back, we found the exact hill where the tire blew and waved good riddance. As the say, happiness is Lubbock, Texas in my rear view mirror.

Monday, April 13, 2009

A Long Weekend

Happy Post Easter! How excited am I that I am still off from work? I cannot argue with a four day weekend. Today I will be watching Whose Wedding is it Anyways, all day. And eating the entire contents of my Easter basket. Here's a little peek into my holiday:

I was off Friday, so I met Mark for lunch at Houlihan's. Yum. It is my favorite. This was the first time I'd ever eaten lunch there. They have this deal, like a pizza place - get your lunch in 15 minutes or it's free. They actually put a little digital timer on your table and start it after you place your order, so you can make sure they don't go over. We had a Free Entree coupon from Mark's birthday (join their email list), so we got out of there for about $15 and we even ordered TWO desserts! How I love you, Houlihan's.

Friday evening I met the girls for Happy Hour at Gloria's. It was just warm enough to sit out on the patio. Always a good time.

Saturday afternoon Kelly and I drove up to Muenster. When we got there we hit up the shops and I got two adorable new shirts (love shopping with Mom!). Both are tie dyed. I am all over this tie dye trend. I LOVE it. Then we went back home to start Bake Fest 2009. We made: Sundae Pie, brownie bites, cut out cookies (butterflies and Easter eggs), pumpkin bread and cupcakes. I do not know why we felt the need to bake so much. It's not like there was anyone else but us there to eat it all!? And, to make it worse, once we were knee deep in these projects (because yes, we did them all simultaneously.. you should have seen the line for the oven), Mom realizes that some sort of strawberry shortcake spilled in the fridge and had dripped all the way down. Everywhere. You know that gooey jarred strawberry stuff that you put on cakes? It had spilt on the top shelf and run down everything, collecting in the two drawers at the bottom of the fridge. Sticky. Thick. Red. Messy. On everything. Every salad dressing. Every bagged salad. Every vegetable. Every fruit. Every leftover. Everything. So we cleaned out the entire refrigerator as well.

Mark came up Saturday night in time for dinner. He brought his two dogs and they wore out the puppies. All four slept in the garage that night, during one of the loudest thunderstorms I've ever heard. My bed shook from the thunder. The family watched Marley and Me that night. We all cried and hugged our pups an extra time that night. I also brought Gus up for the trip because I have been having major guilt issues about leaving him alone at home so much. He usually does really well at my parents' place. This time he was on freak out mode and walked around the entire time whining. Cat whining is quite annoying.

We all made it to Easter mass Sunday morning, dressed in our Spring time best. Even though it was cold and overcast, we forged on. We crammed in the packed church and sat behind a family with four little girls. They were a handful to say the least. The youngest fell and smacked her head on the wood pew, twice. There were a lot of tears during that service.

The Bunny came when we got home. I got the Ped Egg (so appropriate for Easter, yes?) and Mark got A Barrel of Monkey's. Random? We feasted on pot roast before hitting the road back home. I rode up with my sister so I could ride back with Mark. We didn't think this plan through. Because with his two dogs, my cat and the two of us.. it's not really physically possible in his car. So we rode back with Gus in his carrier on my lap. At least it was a short-ish drive!

Last night I watched The Sound of Music on TV. Perfect ending to an Easter weekend! Mark had NEVER seen this movie. He was quickly annoyed, as I knew every single song. His roommate was also amused and laughed out loud at me. Many times.

This morning, I knew I had to take my car in because it's been leaking something all week. The thought of having to spend more money on my car, 5 days after the new tires, was making my physically ill. I got an oil change at Wal Mart last week. We checked the oil level this morning and it was basically completely empty. So I was ready to fight with Wal Mart. Demand that they fix whatever they did to cause this to happen and fill me back up with oil. I went in with my game face on. They took a quick look at it, told me the lid of plug or stopper or whatever hadn't been tightened all the way. Took all the blame. Fixed it up for me and REFUNDED me for the oil change. They even refunded the flat fix they did as well (which we know did no good). It was icing on the cake. They were so apologetic and told me to drive safe as I left. I love when people are nice. It made my day. So I took the $50 they gave me back and got my car inspected down the road. Please let that be the end of all things car for the year.

Now I'm hanging out at home, enjoying the end of this long break. I've got some fun things in store this week. Mark's test is two weeks away, and then we'll get our old, stress-free lives back. Can't wait.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Ouch.



Somewhere on Highway 82, about 40 miles east of Lubbock, this little incident occurred. Can I not catch a break?! To make it worse, once I finally got to town and had the guy at Discount Tire take a look at my spare to determine if I could drive back to Dallas on it (negative), he informs me that it is only a matter of time before my other 3 tires meet this same demise. So, $855 and a few tears later, I am sporting four brand new wheels.

Being a grown up sucks. The countdown to Happy Hour tomorrow has officially began.