Holy Tamale!

After work I went to therapy (yes I see a shrink, get over it) and then to my favorite Chinese nail salon (which actually happens to be Vietnamese - go figure) to get a manicure and my brows waxed. Lovely. Then I drove home and guess what! Waiting on the kitchen table was a present from hubby!!! None other than a $1,400 Nikon D80 SLR Camera with 8GB Memory Card and 18-135 mm lens. OMG I'm so happy I could poop. I am so happy that I can not bring myself to open the damn box. This camera was $1,400. Thats a lot of money. Especially for someone who hasn't bought a new pair of shoes in nearly a year. Of course a camera is so much cooler than any heels...oh and I did buy some Uggs at Christmas, so thats really like 2 months not a year, but still, $1,400 is a lot of money. So I ate dinner with the box on my lap, carried the box with me to tuck the girls in, and then also into the bathroom (TMI) and now the camera box is sitting here beside me on my desk. Unopened. I can still return it for 14 days for a full refund. What to do? What to do?

First Pictures with New Nikkon!!!

Parking Paranoia

I'm late (everyday) and I decide to make 1 loop around Cary Street looking for free parking. Usually I give in and park in the $5/day deck. (Don't you just love paying to come to work!)

This morning as I was circling the block guess what! a car backed out of a spot RIGHT in front of the building. So I pulled in carefully. Put the car in park. And spent the next 5 minutes walking up and down the street looking for "No Parking" signs. No parking on Thursday...okay it's Tuesday. Is it Tuesday? I think it's Tuesday. What are those cones a quarter mile up the road? Could those have blown down the street? Was this spot supposed to be coned off for sewer line mantainance? Are there any of those flimsy street cleaning signs that may have blown over? Am I far enough from the crosswalk? The fire hydrant? Could I be towed or booted? Do I have any outstanding parking tickets? Hmmm, I think I'm okay. But am I? Am I sure? Let me turn around and look one more time. Could it be possible that I was able to score this good of a parking spot?

God, I hope my car is here when I come out of work this afternoon.

I'm too much of an Aries to be Invisible

Saturday I pushed myself. I was fed up with hitting the wall at mile 2.5. Unacceptable mediocrity. I aimed to run at least 4 miles. Nonstop. And I did, mostly. I ran 4 miles. Though it turned in to an awkward jog/hopping/hunched over debacle towards the end.

I went out, again, on Sunday, and I stiff and achy. I could only walk 2.5 miles.

I took off my headphones and listened to the wind blowing through the tree's upmost limbs. The temperature was 50 degrees, I reminded myself that this is winter. The branches are bear. The water is cold. I noticed a certain type of bush that was still clinging onto yellow flaky leaves, as though autumn had not come and gone. The trees, the moss, the squirrels, and I... we are waiting for snow.

I didn't go running today. The weekdays are tough for running. I leave early, come home late, and it's all such a waste of time, you know, this work thing. What a fucking waste of time.

It's all really pointless. I think the word "administrator" is a catch word for "person who occupies their time with busy pointless paperwork".

I should have been a folk singer. I really wanted to do that.

I really wanted to do that.

Why didn't I do that?

Friday means NYC. I need NYC right now. MoMA. Time Square. 5th Avenue. With my Nikon D80. (The one I don't own yet). Maybe I'll stay in the hotel and look out the window all day. People watch. Maybe I'll ride the subway for 4 hours, take pictures of the tube rats. Maybe I'll sit on St. Patrick's church pew and light a candle for my grandfather and all the people in the world who need someone to pray for them.

Obviously, it was Party-time

Who would have thought something so sweet:



could be such a little devil??




The neighbors spent the night. Sometime in the middle of the night the two girls woke up, snuck into the kitchen, and had their own personal party time.






And I mean like jungle hurricane wild party time. Here is a brief list of the midnight party activities that darling Chloe and Gracie enjoyed:

1. glued sparkles to the floor
2. stuck stickers to the wall
3. wrote on my kitchen table with permanent marker
4. pulled out a pack of pipe cleaners and bent them all in squiggles
5. pretended a large bag of glitter was fairy dust and sprinkled it all over each other
6. pulled pictures off the fridge and cut them with caterpillar scissors

The whole time they were enjoying this midnight party I was sleeping just a few feet away on the couch in the living room. Oblivious.

So I woke up this morning, walked down stairs, around the corner, into the kitchen, and OMG!

It took 2 hours to clean up, with the help of Payton and her friend Cayle, AND hubby, AND the two little demons. Towards the end of the clean up hubby says "I bet that was a lot of fun." Yeah, probably. A once-in-your-lifetime-if-you-dont-want-to-suffer kind of fun.

Then we made vegan waffles with princess sprinkles and sugar peaches. Yum.

Amazing Mother-in-law Never Dissapoints

Mother-in-law, Beth, is starting a children's birthday party business. She brings the party to the child's house, sets up a fancy table with decorations, provides costumes for the children to play in, bakes a cake (Beth style which puts Martha to shame), provides treat bags, plays games, etc etc etc.

As with everything this woman does, these parties will be over-the-top spectacular. She has employed me (free of charge of course) to create her site. Her business color is lavender, her theme, victorian. These two components are something I've never worked with before. So far I've created this:



The roses are a bit gag-ish, but she like them, and it does help the overall Victorian-esque feel. I'm rushing to finish the design base so I can start the CSS tomorrow. Still a long way to go. I'll be up for a while yet.

As preparation for the business, Beth asked me to bring the kids down this past Sunday so that she could take pictures for the website/brochure. Beth charged hubby Derek to work the camera. Tamara (my sis-in-law) and I chased the kids around yanking off their clothes and putting on the costumes. I managed to snap a few pictures with my [crappy ass] camera.

It's a Saturday

I watched Resident Evil with hubby, and suprisingly, it didn't totally suck. I'm pretty sure this is the most beautiful woman in the world.




And then I changed my mind when I saw a picture of her at the movie premiere. She doesn't look as hot all dressed up:





Kind of like Viggo Mortensen in LOTRs - hot as Aragon



Mmmmm.....


But nowhere else:






Today I ate a bag of Lays Potato Chips and drank a half a bottle of Smoking Loons Merlot. It's all good, it's all vegan. Now tell me again how a vegan can be chunky??

I ran forever today... Maybe as much as 4.5 miles, and hell, it was pretty damn cool that I was able to do that. Unfortunately now I am up all night finishing a website. The site is massively flowery, but it's for a special client, so what she wants she gets.