$$ Impulse buying $$

I just purchased an airline ticket to Utah tomorrow to see my family and I am so excited. I haven't been back since April. I have two cute nieces there that I just don't get to see enough, and of course the rest of my family, as well. We are all heading camping so I will definitely have some cute pictures to post when I return.

I am sad that Rob won't be going with me. While I was at work I tried to call him to see if he wanted to come but he was in a meeting and didn't answer, so I just bought a ticket for me - see...impulsive! I don't know why, but I just couldn't wait a few hours to hear back from him. Since he isn't really into camping I figured that he wouldn't want to go anyways. He also just started a LSAT prep course and would have to miss it if he came to Utah. I baked him a cake to make it up to him...not sure if that clears me or not...we'll see. Rob gets along great with my family and really likes to play with my nieces. In fact, he is usually the one that initiates the trips down to Utah, not me. Only he doesn't call it Utah, he calls it The Tah. I think he's funny! :)

This is why I do the grocery shopping

While I have been faking sick this past week Rob has been incredibly wonderful to me. He has fulfilled all of my ridiculous requests without any complaints. Seeing as he has been so great, I could just overlook this one little thing, but I find it way too funny to keep to myself. He has a good sense of humor, so I am sure that he can appreciate my amusement at this.

My stomach has been a little sensitive lately so I have been eating really soft and bland foods. A few days ago when Rob asked if I needed him to pick me up anything at the grocery store I asked for some more cottage cheese since I was out. He did come home with 2 large containers of cottage cheese, but they were of the full fat version...I only like fat free cottage cheese. Anything of the non-fat variety is too thick and creamy for me and I dislike it greatly. We always shop at the same store and I always purchase the same brand of dairy (milk, cottage cheese, sour cream, etc.) which has all the same color packaging - dark blue. When I brought this to Rob's attention he told me that he didn't pay any attention to what kind it was, he just grabbed some cottage cheese. Oh well I thought, knowing that I wouldn't eat any of it. Maybe we will have some company over this week and I can feed it to them. Since I am such an extraordinary hostess, I know that cottage cheese is at the top of the list of what people like to be served when visiting someone else home. :)

The next day he came home with a grocery bag that had only two items in it...2 large containers of cottage cheese. It was so sweet of him to make a special stop just to get me some cottage cheese! When I took them out of the bag I burst out laughing! There were 2 large containers of low fat cottage cheese. Still not non-fat, but better. You have to love the guy for trying, right?!? He didn't understand why I was laughing. When I told him what was so funny he suggested that I mix some water in with it. Because that makes sense, right? There is some more cottage cheese that I won't be eating. The next day I ventured out myself to pick up my own dark blue container of fat free cottage cheese, and it tastes great! Now our fridge contains a huge stockpile of various types of cottage cheese.

So if anyone plans on visiting our home within the next week or so, be prepared to be served massive amounts of cottage cheese! I will even garnish it with something fancy to spiff it up, but you have been forewarned...cottage cheese it what you will be getting. Rob won't touch the stuff and I just hate to waste it all...Bon appetite! :)

Thanks for the cottage cheese Rob...love you!!!

Our oh-so-hot Friday night date

Early Friday evening we set out for a leisurely game of golf. The temperature was great...not too hot, but still warm and sunny. Here is Rob prepping for a shot - Dr. Pepper, the true sports drink of champions! I wonder if they need a spokesperson...

Now, his is my kind of golf...hanging out in the golf cart. Sometimes I get a little too carried away in my driving and turn part off-roader. I am such a wild one! I told Rob that I might take some golf lessons and actually get serious about the sport. He'd better watch out...I could become really great!

This is one thing that I don't like about evening golfing...the bugs! I don't know why, but the mosquitoes just LOVE me. I got these two huge mosquito bites and couldn't keep from itching them for the rest of the game. Not a very flattering angle...oh well, you get the gist of it.

Rob got challenged by some 13 year old kid that was playing with his Dad and decided that he had better get serious about it. This was his only serious stance during the entire course. He kind of looks like he knows what he is doing. He wanted to get a game in before a work sponsored golf tournament he is in tomorrow. For someone that hasn't been golfing for long, he is getting pretty good.

This is an amazing song!

I have just rediscovered one of my favorite songs! It is called The Ludlows from the Legends of the Fall soundtrack. The movie's music was done by James Horner, who is amazing. This song has been one that I have loved since the first time I heard it. The other day I accidentally selected it on my iPod when I meant to click on another song and am so happy that I did! I have listened to the entire soundtrack several times since then and watched the movie over again as well. I would highly recommend both to anyone. I am usually not a very artsy/musicy/feely type person, but this soundtrack is very moving. Ooh, that was a little too mushy for me, but I really do mean it...it's just that good!

I am not tech savvy enough to figure out how to place the actual song in this post, so to hear it you will have to click here to be redirected to the song on YouTube.

Quality time with the tube

I have been laying low/under the weather for a little while lately and it hasn't left me with much to do. Since I am not a big TV watcher I stocked up on a bunch of Netflix DVD's to help me pass the time. But...I have yet to watch one of those DVDs because I stumbled across a little gem on Showtime On Demand called Weeds. I have watched over three entire seasons of this show in the last few days. Under any other circumstances I would be ashamed to say this, but hey I have been in bed all week! The lead character is played by Mary Louise Parker who is so cute in the show. So much of her character's mannerisms remind me of a cute, fun aunt I have...yes, Alane I am talking about you!

A change is gonna come (but I need help)

OK, I clearly cannot be left alone! The second that Rob left for class tonight I got bored and dyed my hair back brown. And of course, it looks nothing near the salon-like color Clairol promised! This morning I called my salon to make an appointment to have my bad hair cut fixed and decided to schedule a color as well (I have been thinking of going back to brown for a month or so), but I just couldn't wait for my appointment. So here is my new crappy cut with my homecolored hair. Please excuse my sunglasses, I had already washed my make up off and I was feeling too lazy to put it back on. I am also too big of a chicken to post a make up free picture.

Now I just need to decide on how to cut my hair. Over the past few years I have had a number of short hair looks. Which one should I go back to? Pardon the fuzziness of the shots. I pulled some pictures out of a photo album and scanned them rather than dig through all of my photo back up discs for clearer pictures. Also, please ignore my goofy grins and poses...just focus on the hair. And, no the first one isn't a mug shot! It is my driver's license :)

Which style should I go back to?

Hancock...it was OK.

Last night Rob's little sister Stephanie and their cousin Crystal stayed over. We went and saw the movie Hancock. I heard that it was kind of a bust, but with the limited number of movies playing that were appropriate for the girls, this was our choice. Luckily, we all liked it.

Our day so far has consisted of sleeping in late and lounging around all morning, Rob and girls playing video games, Janalyn playing around on the computer (supposedly doing homework), and then hitting the pool and the gym. I know, what an exhausting day! :) I am beat...I had better take a nap while Rob drives the girls back home.

Oh no...big mistake!!

Over the last few weeks, or maybe months I have been contemplating what to do with my hair. But usually I just think about it and talk about it and whine about it. I certainly never do anything about it. I don't know exactly what it was that got into me this morning, but something prompted me to call my favorite hair salon and see if they had an opening for an afternoon haircut. Maybe I had low blood sugar?? Since they never do have appointments open at the last minute, I expected to be turned down. But what do you know, they did have an opening! After I hung up I was hit with a huge wave of 'oh crap, what am I going to do?!?' and immediately hit redial to cancel the appointment. But before they picked up I chickened out on chickening out and hung up. How stupid would I sound cancelling an appointment that I had just made! I had 2 hours to put together a plan, which of course, I didn't. I just showed up there with no idea as to what I wanted to do. I am sure that they (I am not exactly sure what their titles actually are...stylist, barbers, hair cutters...so I will just stick with 'they') find that completely annoying. I managed to spit out a halfway decent description as to what I wanted and she, scissors in hand, was off! Her hair looked really cute, so I assumed that she would do something really cute with my hair. I didn't have her blow it out and style it before I left, which I know now is a big no-no. I thought it felt great wet, so I was sure it would be good dry too. Not so much! I got home and played around with it and with tears in my eyes, tried to make it look somewhat like what I thought the stylist/barber/hair cutter had in mind. I still haven't worked myself up to actually taking a picture of my new do to post. Maybe sometime this weekend after the swelling in my teary eyes goes down I will be ready to share my big mistake with the world. Any by the world, I really mean the small handful of you who might read this. I have got to use you all as a buffer before I have to show it off at work on Monday. Or maybe I could call in sick. That makes me sound pathetic, never mind...I didn't really mean it! Stay tuned...

We had a great time!

Las Vegas was a lot of fun! We arrived early Friday morning and wandered around all day. We visited the Bellagio for one of our favorite pasttimes...people watching. There is this great little cafe seating area right by their pool entrance that provides the best people watching experience. I know that sounds really weird, but it is one of our stops everytime we visit Vegas.

One of my favorites things about the Bellagio is their seasonal conservatory decorations. The theme this time didn't rank anywhere near the top, but it was still fun. There was a mini Bellagio replica that was actually really neat.

Here is Rob posing in front of the Mt. Rushmore mini replica they had. I thought that these bears were kind of fun looking. They change their decorations seasonally and they are always really original looking. The winter decorations are always my favorites!

Friday night we went to a Cirque du Soleil show at the NY NY called Zumanity. It was such a disappointment! We have seen a couple of the Cirque shows and thought we knew what to expect, but this was far from what we had in mind. We were really bummed because this was the only opportunity we would have to see a show and it was as waste. On Saturday we were lazy and laid around all morning until Jason came and picked us up.

We got to play with the kids for a few hours. Here is a picture of Rob with Parker. Rob keeps saying that he doesn't like little babies, but that is so not true! I had to fight with him to get some Parker time of my own. He is such a happy, smiley red-headed baby.

Apparently I am not very photogenic, as this is the best picture of me that I could find from our whole trip....and Macee is the one that took it. Those short arms make for quite the close up when the photographer is only four! As I was searching through the handful of pictures we took looking for one of me to post I came to the realization that I REALLY don't do well in the heat...I look terrible! I am way too embarassed to post the evidence, so you will all have to believe me...it isn't pretty!

That same night we attended a Ultimate Fighting Champion party with Jason and Courtney. Jason is quite into it, which I found a little surprising. It certainly was entertaining to see how into it the rest of the guys were too. Luckily I was able to sneak into the other room with the girls and chat with all of the fight noise in the background. We had a great time with Jason and Courtney...they are a lot of fun to be around. Too bad were aren't able to see them more often.

Happy early 4th to Everyone

We are off to Vegas early in the morning (our flight leaves at 6 AM!) for three days full of who knows what. Perhaps we will venture to be a little bit exciting so that we have something to post when we get back. Hope everyone enjoys the long weekend...Happy Independence Day!

Taking advantage of my LONG commute

Although I love to gripe to Rob about the long commute I have to work now that we have moved, there is an upside to it. I have a lot of time in the car and I have been using it to listen to books on tape/cd. While I love to read, I just really don't have much time to do it. I have just finished a book called 19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult (one of my favorite authors!) and am starting another book called Joy School by Elizabeth Berg. The voice of the woman that reads it bothers me, so I think that I might have to switch to another book for now. The next one that I have in line is Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. He is known for his lenghtly novels. I have always wanted to read this book, but the thickness of it has put me off. Now that I have nothing better to do, I figure I ought to give it a listen.