My Southern Comfort Buddy

My dear friend, Angela and her man, Mike, came to visit us this weekend! We had such a good time, and the weekend flew by. We did quite a bit to show Mike Austin since this was his first visit. We walked around downtown, went to the capital, 6th street, the Botanical gardens, Lake Travis, and of course Whole Foods. Yes, I take out of towners to a grocery store. I love it, all of the fresh foods and great food bars. Any reason to go to Whole Foods is a good reason :) We also went to a few local restaurants for Mexican and BBQ. Although I haven't seen Angela in about 2 years, it was like we hung out yesterday. No weird silences or lack of things to talk about. I am truly grateful for her friendship and I know that we'll be friends forever. Who else would I talk to about our old drinking adventures :)

Stench



Last weekend Jim and I made fish tacos for dinner. The dinner was very nice, but what was left in it's wake was not so nice. Our entire fridge and freezer REEK of fish. The day I noticed the smell, I took everything out of the fridge and cleaned it out using Fantastic (which really is fantastic, I love that stuff!!). But I think it was too late. By then the damn fish smell is in every nook and cranny in our fridge/freezer. After I cleaned I put a little bowl of vanilla extract in the fridge to try to help out with the smell. Now it just smells like vanilla flavored fish. Ick. Damn. Shit.

So, about 5 days ago I pulled hash browns out of the freezer, and noticed that they were slightly thawed. I poked around in the freezer and found that the stuff was starting to thaw. Super Crappy. I unplugged the fridge, and changed the settings and it came back on. Whew! But a couple of days ago, the fridge stopped working again for a couple of hours. It is working now but I think it is just a matter of time before it dies. Jim and I aren't to sad, we are looking forward to getting a new fridge. We bought this fridge when we moved into the house and we skimped and bought a cheap one. So we both have mixed feelings about the fridge. We both want it to die so we can get another one, but we don't want to have to deal with the hassle.


We'll see what happens. We are convinced that the fish smell broke our refrigerator. :)

Landscaping

I have so many idea's for our backyard, that I'm not sure where to start. I'd like to pull up the cement "barriers" that are around the yard parameter, plant some small shrubs and flowers, create a water feature (either a little pond or fountain), and make a small retaining wall near the garage. Soooooo many ideas and not enough time or money. During the creating of my internal ideas of the yard, I also have to consider the dogs. I love them to death, but I have to make sure the yard is dog friendly or they might tear it up. We'll see what happens this year with the yard. I'm sure it won't be huge, but I'd like to make some changes.

Last weekend I spent some time raking up the leaves and just making it look tidy. We had sooooo many leaves and weeds just hanging out around the yard. When I was raking I came across a little critter that startled me... a little snake. Ick. But this guy wasn't so bad, and I'm pretty sure I scared the crap out of him. He hung out on the rock that I put him on (with my rake, I didn't touch him) so I went inside and grabbed my camera (big surprise, right). I attached the picture below, but I am going to see if I have a better one. This one doesn't have his head focused. I put my camera near the snake and took the picture. My head was no where near the snake. I don't care if is was tiny, he is still a snake. :)

Severe Weather


We are expecting some pretty heinous weather tonight. Well, at least our fine weather men say that we are expecting some pretty heinous weather. According to my favorite news channel (at least they are usually correct in predicting the weather), the chances of a tornado, large hail and plenty of rain( up to 3 inches) are pretty good tonight. So we might be in for a wild night! I wish this storm would happen during day light so we can see how bad is it. But the storm is happening later tonight so we might sleep right through this severe weather.

UPDATE: We got about 30-45 minutes worth of rain. Nothing much, I slept right through it and had to ask Jim if we even got any rain. But there were parts of Texas that did have bad storms. A tornado hit in Eagle Pass, which is a town near Mexico (well over 4 hours away)

My number was called

Well, today was a new experience for me, I got called for jury duty. I have been called before but I always was dismissed. I received final confirmation that I was selected about a week ago. Thankfully you could do most of the signing through the Internet. I drove to the address and found it right away but I still had to park 2 blocks away. Once I get through the security check (no strip search, damn) I find the right room. But there are people sitting outside on the chairs and the room has a sign that says "Jury Only". Hmmmmm, does that mean that there are already people waiting in there? Or do we just wait outside? I asked one of the guys sitting outside if he was part of the 1:15pm group and he said he was. I noticed some other people nodding their heads. So, what the hell, I'll wait outside too. After a bit, we were ushered into the room to wait a little longer. I guess we could have all gone in, but none of us wanted to walk into the wrong room. I will say through out this experience, I found that there was a void of instructions. I wasn't sure what I needed to wear or what I could or couldn't take into the courtroom. And a few more instructions on what we could expect to happen on that day would have been nice. I tried to research what would happen, but couldn't find anything on the Internet.

So we are given a number and then escorted into the courtroom where we are altered to the type of case we would be listening to, and it is a noise violation (dogs barking) case. We were asked questions by the prosecuter. Most of the questions were based around if we ever had a problem with a neighbor, dog issues, ever been a juror before, dislike attorneys, and if we have dogs. So after all of the questions, we were asked to leave the room. I guess that is when they decided on which jurors they wanted. After we got back into the room, our names were called, and son of a bitch, I was the last person to get called. :)

Not to totally bore you, I'll stick to some of the case facts..... A family has 5-7 dogs at all times, they get out and roam the neighborhood, they constantly bark, this is the familys 5th or 6th ticket for noise violation and the cops and animal control has been called to their house a couple of times a year. While the neighbor his constantly bothered by this issue, he will call the cops every couple of months with the hopes his neighbors will take care of their dogs.

Well, along the way the lady admitted that her dogs got out and were barking the day she got the ticket. At that point, I say (in my head) "what the fuck, you just said you were guilt, let's go home!!!". Unfortantly, that didn't happen, and we had to sit and listen to the lady tell us how much she loves her dogs and that they would never hurt anybody. I have no doubt that she cares for her dogs, but she needs to take better care of them and ensure they don't escape from her yard.

So, we as the jurors were sent out to talk about the case and deliver our verdict. Well, it was pretty easy... GUILTY! But our second task was to put a dollar on her violation. The ticket, if she didn't contest it, would have been $100. We all agreed that the dollar amount should be more than the ticket. We all agreed on $250, I think it should have been higher, but the rest of the jurors seemed happy with the $250 fine.

All in all, I didn't mind jury duty as much as I thought I would. I wouldn't want to get stuck into a large trial that lasted more than a couple of days. Jim got his jury summons a couple of weeks after I did, so we'll see if he gets chosen for such an important case :)

The after party

I still had my camera out once we got home, so poor Taylor and Chewie were forced to take some pictures with mommy and daddy. :) Yes, we are goofy. Deal with it! :)

Hmmmmm, I swear poo-pah was between us a second ago

Taylor has her "sleepy look". Clearly, she was sleeping while were gone, and isn't happy that her picture is being taken.

Ahhhh, me and my poo-pah!!

Saturday Night

We went to an engagement/bridal shower for Kelli and George last night. We didn't know a lot of people, but we still had a good time!! I headed to Target to get them a gift off of their registry, but a lot of their stuff was already purchased. I could have gotten something from there, but it would have been something like a meat tenderizer, pot holder and a wash cloth. Ummm, no thanks. Sure they registered for them, but I wanted our gift to at least have a theme like bathroom or kitchen stuff. So I hauled my ass over to Bed Bath and Beyond, where I found lots and lots of stuff! I ended up getting her some kitchen utensils.

Da Kids

Yesterday was a great day, so I spent some time doing lawn work as well as chasing the kids with the camera. It has been awhile since I posted some Taylor and Chewie pictures, so here you go! I was playing around with the camera by laying it on the ground and then taking the picture. I guess this is what an ant would see!!

1XX

What is 1xx you ask? That is my weight. There is NOOOOOO way that I will put my weight on a blog so I'll use 1xx. I need to lose some "jiggle" before bikini season. I don't want any drastic changes, just a little less ass and thigh :) So I figured if I wrote about it (and post updates) on my blog, I might actually keep to some type of exercise routine. I don't belong to a gym so I am doing everything at home by myself. I subscribe to Shape magazine and they always have great idea's on how to work out at home. I just need to stick to a routine. Working out one day every two weeks isn't going to cut it. I miss the days when I could eat anything, not work out and not gain weight.

I have a couple of events coming up that I will be in a bathing suit. A boating work event and a bachelorette party where we will be hanging out at a spa and pool for the day. Damn. That is motivation enough to firm up! And I know through out the summer I'll end up at the lake on a boat around girls 5 years younger than me with an intact metabolism. Bitches. :)

So, here is my pledge to reduce the jiggle and look smokin' hot in a bikini!!!

Working Hard



I had an all day training on our products today. It was pretty informative but it took allllllll day. But my day went by a lot faster because Sarah was in the class with me. I miss working with her and today was a lot of fun with lots of laughter in what could have been a really boring class. The class was hands on, so we got to play with some of our products. One of the tasks was to take pictures. Since we were in class we had to keep them "clean" but here were a couple that we took......

Pretty Lady!!

A weekend ago, Kelli and I headed to Mayfield Park to take her bridal portraits. We were slightly concerned because it had rained most of the week before. We were very lucky and had two days to dry up. There were some area's that we couldn't go into because of the mud, but overall we had a lot of area's to take pictures in!!

Here are some of the pictures!

Bada Bing Bitch

Last Sunday was the return of The Sopranos. The episode wasn't one of their best, but hopefully it will lead to a very eventful season!!!! I don't want to say to much in case somebody out there hasn't seen it yet. :)

Play Ball



I was given free tickets to the Round Rock Express game on Thursday. We went with Chris and Lindsey and was quite fun!! They were playing the Iowa Cubs, so of course we were cheering for the Cubs. But that damn Express team beat my Cubbies.

Indy trip

Here are some pictures from my training in Indianapolis. The other people in the pictures are managers from different states.