Changed Perceptions

Last Saturday, I went out with some of the ladies that are in my spin class.  For me (and I think this was the case for everyone), it involved WAYYYY too many beers and shots of Ren’s.

What’s a Ren you ask?  Well, I can’t exactly tell you and not because it’s top secret but because, well, I had too many but I know it was good.  Very good.  Way too good.

The Ren was actually named after, well, Ren.  It was her birthday.  Her 30th birthday to be exact.  And we celebrated in style.  I don’t know that the other patrons on the balcony at Pazzo’s appreciated our celebrating, but, whatever.  We had fun.  And really, that’s all that matters. 

I secretly think that they were just jealous becuase they weren’t part of our drunk fest celebration and didn’t get to experience the sweet deliciousness of The Ren.  But, not everyone can be as cool as us.  We have high standards you know — you need to drink and well, ummm, that’s probably about it.  Oh, and you can’t be total loser, but that’s a given.

And a drunk fest it was.  Let me tell you…Or rather not but only because I can’t remember.

I do know that I have two incriminating pictures of the ass kicking spin instructor that I’ll refrain from posting.  But only because we want to use them as leverage or ya know, since she controls what we do in spin.

But, I’m not against a little manipulation.

What?  You want us to do do what?  Hmmm, Hover?  I don’t know, we have these pictures….

Oh, sing?  Yeah, not so sure about that.  Do you really want to make us do that?

Ya know, that sort of thing.  ‘Cause we’re evil.  Or at least I am 

After last Saturday, I do know that I’ll probably never look at spin Class or the ass kicking spin instructor (who I shall refer to as Kelly from here on out) the same way again.  Not so much a bad thing.  But, it was one crazy ass night.

I even said to Jay at least once if not twice or more, since I, well, have this tendency to repeat myself over and over when drinking, “This is like watching a train wreck waiting to happen”.  But, I was proudly part of that train wreck and would gladly hang with any of my spin peeps again!  And in fact, will be doing just that tomorrow morning, sans alcohol this time.

E & J’s Wedding

Last Saturday we went to the wedding of a good friend of ours.  Of course I used it as the perfect opportunity to be a picture whore and of course I’m sharing with all of you 

But a few notes first:

1.  The ceremony was short and sweet.  As a guest, I greatly appreciate this!

2.  E looked STUNNING as you’ll soon see in pictures or not because well, see #12.

3.  The amount of love in J’s eyes when he first saw E walking down the aisle was magnificent to witness.  Never have I seen someone look at someone else that way (although my mom said that Jay looked at me like that!).  That much love and emotion pouring out of him.  It was so special and wonderful to witness their marriage ceremony.

4.  Not many families can pull off tailgating in the church parking lot, after the ceremony but our family as well as some of the brides family managed this with great success.

5.  Fighting with hubby on our way to the reception because we’re trying to find Hwy 41, not so good.

6.  Open bar is good.

7.  Weddings are fun.

8.  Dancing at a wedding is even more fun.

9.  Finding a pizza place that delivers at 12:15am is even better.

10.  Hotel beds at the Renaissance Hotel are extremely comfortable.

11.  Hotel floors are probably not so comfortable but it beats sleeping in the bed next to your best friend who is getting it on with his booty call girl.

12.  I suck at taking pictures.

It’s been a while…

No wonder I’m f’ing starving this morning.  Sparkpeople.com calculated that I burned 627 during my 1.09 mile swim this morning. 

I’m sure I won’t be able to move my arms tomorrow but at least I burned  barely more calories than I chose to eat for breakfast.  Who would have guessed that my one slice of toast with 1 pat of butter would cost me 200 calories?  Not to mention the 271 calories for the egg, bacon and pepper omelet YUM!  Or the 12 Frosted Mini Wheats that I had before hitting the gym.

Sigh…I have mentioned that I make bad food choices, right?

I was supposed to be off work today.  Not just today, but Monday also.  Since I have insanely busy, but mostly fun weekend plans, I chose to take next Friday and Monday off.  I was taking the time off to do some stuff around the house so I’d rather have the weekend in addition to those days off.  It seemed silly that I wouldn’t be able to continuously do stuff over the weekend, if I was on a roll and got extremely ambitious HA, you obviously don’t know me if you think that will actually happen. 

Man, it SUCKS working when you were supposed to be at home sleeping cleaning, and organizing and throwing stuff away and painting.

So, more on the weekend plans…unfortunately, this weekend can’t possibly live up to last weekend (I need to dedicate an entry to this all on it its own — it’s that worth it!).  But, it will be be great nonetheless. 

Tomorrow morning at an obscene time for a weekend I have to take Mango, the bald pickin’ pink chicken to the vet, again.  He’s still picking at his chest and legs. 

After that, I’m going to stop at my best friends house to see what a wonderful job her friend did with helping her decorate her house.  I’m hoping to maybe bribe ask him for some help as well.  That is, if he promises to pretend to not see the nasty disgusting carpeting we inherited when we bought the house 4+ years ago and haven’t quite gotten around to replacing.

Oh, and I also have to give a shout out to my bff.  She is graduating with her bachelor’s degree in social work in May and she was accepted into Graduate school.  What a long way she’s come from the days of ditching her freshman year college classes    I am SOOOOOOO very proud of her.  And, I can’t wait to throw her a kick-ass graduation party!  I love you Janie!

 

Then, Saturday evening, I’m driving to meet up with some coworker friends.  I love these girls.  They are my sanity some days.  I’m closer with 2 of them and there are days that if you were to overhear our conversation, you would think we actually hated each other.  We have that great, “let’s give each other a ton of shit” friendship.  Hopefully we don’t freak our other friend out 

*Sorry for the poor quality picture.  Obviously the person who took it, sucked at taking pictures.

On Sunday, the wedding festivities begin for our good friends E & J and I will be headed to E’s bridal shower.  I’m so excited for them!

As if that isn’t enough going on! 

My sister asked if my mom and I would come over, after the shower, and help her re-organize the furniture in her house.  Her wonderful husband is giving her some resistance and tells her to “leave the office alone.  Leave Guitar’s family joke that this is what they will be naming their first son room alone”.  So, with all of us there to play interior designer, he obviously can’t put up a fight, right? 

I’m tired after typing all that.  And, why did I not keep Monday as a vacation day?

No more ifriends

It’s official.  I no longer consider these people my ifriends.

Since I’ve been making a concious effort to attend the HO’s (hang outs), I’ve been given the opportunity to chat (in real life) with them and get to know them better and have decided that they are now friends and not ifriends.  It’s funny how one event in your life (planning a wedding) can introduce you to such a wonderful group of ladies.  Ladies that are so supportive yet so willing to tell it to you straight, if you are clearly being irrational.  And we’ve all had our days! 

I’m glad to have stumbled upon this group of amazing women and was able to form friendships with them – granted, the friendships are still forming and growing but they are friendships nonetheless!

Oh, and I suppose I should introduce my friends 

Top from left to right:  Krista, Sarah, Jenica, Emily, Sara, Stacey, Evie, Tracey

Bottom from left to right:  Danica, Sheila, Jess, Ang, Jessie and yours truly

I love these people

Last Wednesday, I got together for dinner with some friends and family.  Specifically my mom, Charley (my moms boyfriend), Aaron (my brother), Gordy and Tom.

(my brother, Aaron is missing from this picture…the lameass decided to leave early and missed the group picture)

I have known this freak, Gordy (aka Nodrog) since, goodness, I don’t even know! 

 My mom’s cousin was good friends with his parents and we used to go camping together at Lake LaDonna in Oregon, IL (southwest of Rockford).  Wow, he used to be so annoying and well, I guess not much has changed    I kid…I kid.  Goodness, those were good times. 

Until the douchebag felt the need to disappear from our lives.

Fortunately, my mom went to a family wedding where she was able to ask her cousin, the murderer, (another story for another time) for Gordy’s phone number and voila, here he is again, blessing us with his presence.

*Gordy, I expect a nice lump sum of money for talking about you so nicely here on my blog.

Last April, Gordy introduced us to Tom.  We love Tom.  I think that if Gordy ever felt the need to separate himself from us again, we would be OK with that.  As long as Tom stuck around.

Seriously though.  Tom is just a wonderful guy – sweet and genuine to the core.  I first met him last April when we all went to dinner for my mom’s 50th birthday and don’t know that I’ve ever known someone who fit in so well and so quickly with our “group”.  I’ll be the first to admit, we are a very close knit family and have some very close friends.  I think people find that intimidating and find it difficult to be a part of our group.  Not Tom though.  He felt like one of us from the start.  And, he makes the best ever sangria.  And I have the secret recipe.  No, I can not share.  I am under orders.  From Tom. 

Charley is also a newbie to our group – my mom and he have been dating for a while now.  Does this make him her boyfriend?  I can’t recall that she’s ever referred to him as such but…when you see someone at least 5 times a week, talk to them everyday and take weekend trips together for at least the last 6 months, doesn’t that make you boyfriend/girlfriend?

We like Charley though.  He’s not afraid to carry a purse.  Truly though, he also is a very genuine and interesting person.  (Nothing personal mom)…But my mom doesn’t have the greatest track record when it comes to picking men.  So naturally, I decided that I needed to be more cautious about forming a relationship with anyone she dates.  I tried to do so with Charley.  But, it just didn’t happen.  He didn’t let that happen.  Despite his whining antics when we whoop him in water volleyball, he’s a good guy.  Anyone that genuinely and truly cares about my mom gets my vote.  And, you can tell he cares about her just from how he looks at her.  And with how treats her.

And now I’m bored with writing so I’ll leave you with a few pictures of our fantabulous evening.  One that we’ve decided needs to happen more often, like once a month often.

(note my glorious new Ann Taylor Loft sweater – bought on sale for $28!)

BW3 HO

I know that I’m late in talking about this, but whatever.  It’s my blog and I can do what I want! 

I work in the corporate office of a retail company.  Every Christmas season, we (meaning corporate employees) are encouraged to work in the stores for at least 1 or 2 days.  We get the option of whether we want to work out on the sales floor or whether we want to work behind the scenes in the stockroom.  I always choose the stockroom.  Since the store that I have worked at in the past was closed, I had to choose a new store to work at.  I wasn’t too thrilled at this – I don’t like change.  I like walking into the familiar.  What did excite me however, is that this gave me the opportunity to meet some friends that I had meet through the internet (the knot) and have gotten to know better through a facebook group that we are all members of.

Top (left to right):  Jessie, Sheila, Jenica

Bottom (left to right):  Danica, Emily, Me

Being that I had never met any of them, I was quite nervous, but in retrospect, I don’t know why.  Conversation was NEVER strained and I think we were laughing about 85% of the time.  I had so much fun with these awesome ladies, well, that is until the live trivia crap started.  It was a blast and I seriously couldn’t believe how quickly 3 hours passed.  I can’t wait for the next HO that I can actually attend (I live an hour from where the HO’s normally take place so I can’t always get to them).

My Birthday Extravaganza

I’ve blogged about my bff previously, and just how wonderful she is.  I also probably don’t give my husband enough credit as he is equally as wonderful.  I have a lot of history with these 2 people and I really can’t say enough good things about them.  I do not think I would be the person I am today, without them in my life.

Again this year, mother nature wasn’t smiling down on me for my birthday.  Around 5pm I got the call from my mom saying that she, her boyfriend, my brother, his girlfriend and my grandma weren’t going to be making it to dinner due to the weather.  Sigh…I do understand.  The weather was crap and on a good day, the drive would take them 70 minutes, at least.

To kickoff the festivities, Jane and her son came over, bearing gifts.  Have I already mentioned how much I adore them?    Well, it turns out that Jane forgot to bring some better shoes and only had ballet flat shoes.  In true Jane style, she fashioned garbage bags on her feet to prevent her shoes from getting soaked.

    

We normally don’t do gifts for each other, but for some reason, she felt the need to do so this year.  Since she was recently laid off (or according to her son, “fired, but they fired everyone”), she visited the re-gift store located in a closet at her mom’s house.  Since it was a need/want thing, Jane took the bottle of perfume for herself and gave me this:

    

Yep.  I am now the proud owner inflatable leg things.  To bad she couldn’t have given me these sooner, I could have let my dad borrow them while he was in the hospital.  It might have saved him a $500 a day if he didn’t have to use the ones they provided.  And as much as I laugh at love the gift, I do think Jay might try to steal them away from me…

         

I also recieved this years HOTTEST gift.  The 2007 we energies cookie book.  I’m not kidding and I know you’re jealous.  Jane had to drive all the way to Sturtevant, WI to pick up this baby.  I do not care how much begging and pleading you do, I’m not giving this gift up ok, I probably would.

At 5:30, I called my friend Erica to see if they were still planning on meeting us for dinner and they were.  Alas, an hour later, my mom called and said that Erica and crew; Jon (Erica’s fiance), Cheryl (Erica’s mom) and Mick (Cheryl’s boyfriend) were not going to be making it afterall.  I guess they started to head to Kenosha but the roads were slippery and they saw 4 accidents so they decided not to take any chances and turned around.

At this point, we decided to change our plans and went to a different restaurant for dinner and Jane’s son kept us laughing with his nostril entertainment.

    

After dinner, we ended up dropping Jane and her son off at our house and they drove back to her mom’s house.  She had some studying to do and we both knew it wouldn’t happen if they spent the night.  Jay and I decided to frequent our familiar corner bar for a drink or ten.  We weren’t originally planning on staying out for very long but our friends Danny and Chante called and said they were coming to meet us out.  You know it’s going to be a long night (or should I say a  painful morning?) when the first thing that happens upon them showing us is the ordering of a round of jager bombs.

As you can imagine, we had a fabulous evening and my camera captured some great pictures…and some even better self portraits.

              

And still better yet, a classic video of “Dancing Dan”.  I must warn you before you view this though.  Please do not watch this while drinking beverages of any sort.  There is a very good chance you will spit whatever you are drinking onto your computer screen while laughing.  Enjoy.

*I apologize for how dark the video is – it was taken with my digital camera.

All in all, thanks to my absolutely wonderful husband and friends, I had an awesome birthday.  This one will be remembed as one of my favorites.

Let The Birthday Festivities Begin!

Last night, it became official.  I received my FIRST birthday card of the year from Jessie.  I participate in a birthday card exchange with a group of iFriends and it’s so exciting to get cards from them.  Of course, I also received a jury summons so that’s not so good 

I SERIOUSLY LOVE BIRTHDAYS.  Mine in particular.

Usually, I designate a few weeks before my birthday and a few weeks after my birthday to be all about me.  For some reason though, I haven’t done that this year.  Maybe it’s because I’m not to happy about turning 31.  I was okay with 30.  Probably because it was just on the brink of “thirties”.  But 31?  EEKS…

I’m sure part of my problem is that I really wanted to have a baby by now.  Heck, if my “life’s vision” had worked out how I planned, I would have had a baby 5 years ago!  But, it didn’t.  I can’t dwell too much I guess and only hope that it will happen this year for us.

In my family, for birthdays, we typically go to dinner with a semi-small group of family and close friends.  There’s usually between 8-15 people.  We always have a fabulous time and I’m quite excited to get together with everyone once again.  The only downer is that my sister and her husband won’t be able to join us because they are doing Christmas with his family. 

What’s even better is that I don’t have to be involved with the planning of this!  Last year, I got annoyed and decided that I shouldn’t have to plan my own birthday celebration dinner (I plan everyone else’s!) so my mom graciously stepped in.  If you knew my mom, you would know this is huge.  She is the type of person that will say “You order the pizza but I’ll pay”.  She HATES doing stuff like this. 

As long as we don’t get a MASSIVE snow storm on Saturday (a la December 1st, 2006), I think it will be a fabulous day and one that I much anticipating and in much need of.

BFF Stuff

Wow, I’m just full of words today (or maybe it’s because I’m not feeling overly motivated the day before Thanksgiving?)

Let’s talk about my best friend, Jane.

Who, if she ever reads my blog, may not be my best friend anymore because she’ll probably KILL me for posting pictures of her  :)

She lives in the Milwaukee area and I don’t get to see her very often.  I have been friends with her since 9th grade.  Yeah, we’ve had our ups and downs but I do not know what I would do if she were not in my life.  She is my person, my purple aardvark. 

Each day, I am blessed to know such a wonderful person.  She amazes me day in and day out and is probably one of the very few people I can say that I idolize.  She is one of those people that everyone could stand to learn a lot from.  Next to my mom, she is the world’s best mother to an absolutely amazing child (who, btw, is ours if something happens to her).  She goes to school full-time, has a full-time internship and up until very recently, worked full-time.  I don’t know how she does it.  I think my life is busy and chaotic and can’t even imagine how she makes it through her days.  I wish she lived closer so that we could help her more but I try to do what I can (which admittedly, isn’t much).

On the way to work this morning, we were chatting on the phone and she said “I have to decide whether to come down to K-town tonight or tomorrow morning”.  My INSTANT reply was “come down tonight, ask your mom to babysit and then we can go out”.  SUCCESS.  Her mom agreed.  I am so very excited.  It has been months since I’ve seen her and she doesn’t get much time for non-mom things so it’s a win-win situation.  We (meaning Jay and I) get to spend time with our crazy and wonderful friend Jane and she gets a night off to have fun, relax and not have to be a mom for a few hours.  Not to mention, it doesn’t get much better than to spend an evening with Jay and I!  (I kid, I kid.  Well, not really).   

Tuesday Evening Excitement

Last night I met Stacey and Steph for dinner.  As blogged about previously, I met these two on the Internet.  Specifically on the knot while planning my wedding last year.

From left to right:  Me (why is it that pictures of ones self ALWAYS turn out crappy?), Steph (whose diagrams cracked my shit up) and Stacey (ex-big rig co-rider, living off the land girl).

And for as nervous as I was to meet someone new, I shouldn’t have been.  These girls are just great and were so much fun to hang out with although, I’m sure I talked way too much, which on occasion (insert sarcasm), I have a tendency to do.  It was one of those nights where you start yawning, look at your watch and realize “HOLY CRAP, where have the last 3 hours gone?”  I hope that we make a point to get together on occasion because I genuinely had such a nice time talking and laughing with them. 

What wasn’t so great was staying up till 1:15am to help my sister with her resume.  I had promised to help her when I got home from dinner but I didn’t get home till 11pm.  I personally didn’t mind staying up to help her, but I did feel bad that I kept her awake that late.  But, it is what it is and now she has a fabulous resume to show for it!