TP

So, I find it fascinating and infuriating the bathroom toilet paper situation I have encountered at my job lately. Who the heck keeps stealing/loosing/taking/misplacing the freakin spindles that hold the toilet paper rolls in their holders?!?!?! They are missing in 3 separate women's bathrooms. Its so annoying, and gross, to just have the TP rolls balancing on the holders or handicap bars. THEY DONT ALWAYS STAY BALANCED, so that means they are often on the floor. Sick.

in the Lou

Well, I have been at home in F-Town/ around and about in "the Lou" this weekend. Its been whirlwind as usual but thats ok. I am glad to be home, but honestly, its been a pretty tough trip. First of all, my parents had to put our family dog to sleep on Thursday. Dusty was almost 20 years old! thats right, I said 20! He was such a sweet dog always, but had been getting so sick and old the past couple of years. I felt so bad for him the last few times I saw him or when I saw him in pictures. So now, he is dog heaven with Daisy (if she'll deal with him) and Daphne and all our other extended family doggies.
Also, my (bestest) Grandpa suffered a 2nd stroke in a month and is currently still in the hospital because they are trying to get his medication all leveled out. It was pretty hard to go see him today, although he is not "sick" really at all and is totally "with it". It was hard because he was telling me what happened and how he has lost the sight in his left eye and he started to get pretty emotional about that. Man, was that hard to see! He has always been so strong- invincible really- always taking care of all of us and my Grandma and everything. I think he will be ok and will be able to do most everything he wants to do he will just have to get used to maybe doing things a bit differently. They even said he could still drive(!) My cousin K is going to find him an occupational therapist to help him "re-learn" how to drive with just that one eye. I will keep you posted on his recovery.

So tomorrow we are going to go to church and then go visit my other Grandpa and his wife (not my Grandma.) He has had a very rough year health wise (like very rough.) I haven't seen them since the wedding. I am glad to have the opportunity to get by there although, I am sure it will be somewhat upsetting also- to see him more frail and sick.


The weekend wasnt all sad and stressful. Most of the family came over tonight to see me and to kind of celebrate my birthday a little early. It was nice to see everyone of course and we always have a good time. We got out some old VCR tapes to watch some old family footage of dance recitals and some of us doing those slingshot/dragons wing rides. Not me- I didnt go on that trip to FL for some reason.
Anyway, go to get to bed. 

This weekend

was my one year anniversary and it was really wonderful! I cant believe how quickly the year went by. Being married has been very awesome. I couldn't really ask for thing to have gone any better.
It has been fun getting used to living together- although I am sure I frustrate Stock more than he does me, with my little bit of a messy streak still left in me! We have so much fun together and he makes me laugh all the time. We have serious discussions about things and I enjoy those as well. I feel totally fulfilled. I just wanted to put that out there.

So for our anniversary we had a lovely and romantic evening at the Gaylord Texan. We had an awesome King Suite that was probably bigger than our old apartment! it was nice. We had a great dinner at a Latin restaurant where we both got some yummy fish dishes. Then I got a lovely surprise text message from my friend W. She sent us a gift card for the Gaylord, so we had a lovely breakfast there the next day too!
On Sunday we did a little shopping and then went to go get massages. It was both of our first professional massages. It made me SO SORE! Man. I still hurt today! Its getting better though, so maybe tomorrow I will feel a difference or something.

We had the cake topper and some cupcakes left over from the wedding that I thawed out this weekend too. We tried eating the cupcakes on Saturday night- YUCK! they were totally gross and freezer burnt. The cake however is still very good. We had a little of that today! Ameretto cake with raspberry filling! :0)

la la la la la la la la la

Well, I joined a community choir tonight. Stay tuned as to how it goes. The people were all very nice and welcoming which is a plus, but as I pretty much expected, I am the youngest person in the choir by 15-20 years. I have commited to singing their next concert with them in mid-Feb, and I will probably stick around for the April one but past that we will just see how it goes. The Feb concert theme is LOVE SONGS so its a bunch of musical numbers and other standard type stuff. Fun stuff, but on the initial read-through lets just say this group wasn't really "swingin"! We were (myself included sad to say) pretty square. I think my professional jazz musician husband will have intersting things to say about our renditions of some of these tunes.
I also want to try out for a musical this summer. This one community group is doing the show "Sugar" so I think that will be fun. Again, I dont know anything about the dynamic of this community group, or anything about their calliber or level of professionalism, but why not just give it a try! Right? I cant sit at home and only work, clean and go to gigs with the hubby all the time, forever. I need some "creative outlet" too. * Not that I mind any of the aforementioned things!
ALTHOUGH, knitting has been SO fun to me lately. Will post more on that later, so I can start a new project now!

hair

I dyed my hair a few weeks ago and no one has noticed. (btw: I cheeped out and used box color. but got 2 boxes so that I had enough to thoroughly cover everything because my hair is getting pretty darn long these days.) I tried really hard to choose a color that was between my “highlighted” length but closer to my darker roots so the upkeep would not be as hard as it is with having highlights. I am so bad about getting highlights done frequently enough. Its so dang expensive!


So, do you think since no one said anything I chose a really good color? Or that they think it looks bad? I like to try to think that it is the 1st choice but then, maybe its not. I actually didn’t like the color myself at first, but its grown on me a lot.

I have been trying to grow out my highlights for several months now. At least 6. I have gone once to a professional place to have my hair dyed a bit darker, in the hopes of matching the roots, but it really turned out to be too light still once more roots grew in. Such a pain.

new laptop here...

I am posting from my brand new laptop! WHO HOOO. Very exciting. I have never owned a brand new laptop in my life! I have bought two computers, both desktops over the years and have own 3 other laptops which were all either used or hand-me-down. The latest two laptops were both since moving here to TX and they had been Stocks. They were good machines, but just had issues which made them not good for him to travel with.

ANYWAY. Now I have my own, new portable laptop. I think I will blog alot more now because I can sit down in the living on the couch and play around online.

I bought a Gateway and its from Best Buy. I think it should be a pretty good machine. I am super excited about it having a built-in webcam. My good friend "A" just had a baby and recently started using Skpe with him so now she can see me too. cool!

I am so jealous- I just got off the phone with my sister who is leaving for a cruise tomorrow. She is going with our cousin, aunt and a couple other people. Interesting group, but still fun! I hope she has fun. I am sure she will come back "black again" because if you know my sister, she likes to joke about being "mixed."

Decorations- stored!

I got all the Christmas decorations put up today. I feel pretty accomplished! I still have to get the outside decorations "taken down" but they are very minimal. 4 stings of 100 lights and a spotlight to be exact. cake. I think the red ribbon will just get thrown away. I dont think it will store that well.

Lots of people have been posting on facebook how sad they are to take down their Christmas decorations. It is a little sad, I guess. I will miss the pretty glow of the tree but I will be glad to have the other furniture back in its place.

Taking down the Christmas cards from the mantel really makes it look bare. I need to get some more decorations for up there. We are also still looking for a trunk type thing for the first landing of the stairs. I would like to have those things before my friends S and K come visit in a couple of weeks.

So, we had to spend a bunch of money on my car today. What a bummer. 3 new tires, some new light bulbs (because they were out and it already was in the shop) and then an oil change. I am glad to have the new tires. I knew the ones I had were not great so I will feel better driving on wet or possibly frozen roads now.