Random Thoughts

I have much to blog about, in fact, I have a whole list in the little notebook I keep with me, but it's in my purse and I am too lazy to get it out, sort the pictures, etc.  Yep, I'm THAT lazy, ha ha.

So here's my random thoughts for the day.

*I'm glad it's the weekend.  I worked all day and we just got home from a grand opening event where I ate too many appetizers.  There was this amazing chocolate mousse dessert in a tiny cup with a tiny spoon that had hot fudge in the bottom of it.  Oh my.  I had two of those.

*Tomorrow we have a busy day.  Service until noon, then a few errands to run, then we are heading to Santa Fe for a French meeting at 4:00.

*Sunday is a 'free' day.  I plan to blog again and get organized around the house a little bit more.  And maybe watch a movie.

*We went to Colorado last weekend and had a great time.  I miss our friends there already.  They are totally the type of friends that I could take a vacation with.  We have a lot of fun with them.

*I just finished Lauren Graham's book, 'Someday Someday Maybe'.  I really, really liked it.  It's not like a 'deep' read or anything, and I would definitely categorize it as 'fluff', but I love fluff!  It was the perfect book for me to read right now.  And I actually laughed out loud at least 10 times.  She is a good writer, and a good comedian.  The main character in the book (Franny Banks) was so believable and likable and so....imperfect.  She was great!  I hope Lauren writes more books.

I thought this paragraph was interesting, ha ha (Franny lives in Brooklyn):

*Music.  I've been listening to a lot of Pink lately.  And Coldplay.  And Simon & Garfunkel (don't judge).  And Phillip Phillips.  And Birdy.  And Judy Garland.  And The Lumineers.  And Elton John.  And The Killers.

My tastes in music are varied, if you couldn't tell.

*Work is nuts.  If I never had to look at an audit again in my life, I would be totally okay with that.  Oh, and my boss just told me today 'work all the overtime you want'.  Want?  I don't WANT to work any.  But I can work some here and there if I NEED to.  Maybe.  If I want to.  Ha.

*I'm tired, can you tell?

*What did we ever do before we could pay bills online?  Seriously.  I think online bill pay is the best thing about the internet.

*The next best thing on the internet is Amazon.  And Etsy.

*Have you seen that new (or maybe it's not that new) aisle in Target that's like 'Gifts on the Go' or something like that?  It's by all the gift wrap and gift bags.  Anyways, they have really cute stuff there.

*Did you know that counting from 1-69 in French is very easy, but once you hit 70, you actually have to do math in your head?  Like 70 in French is 60+10 (soixante-dix).  80 is 4x20 (quatre vingts).  90 is even more confusing.  4x20+whatever number is next - 11 - 19.  Seriously.  So 99 is quatre-vingts-dix-neuf (4x20+19).

Thankfully, unless we're in the book of Psalms, we don't have to worry about the higher numbers too much.  I'm to the point now that when I hear a number in French, I don't have to translate it into English in my head...I just turn to the chapter and verse.   Unless it's 70 or over.  And then I have to do the math.  It's so dumb!

I think that's it for now.  This was just a very random brain dump!  And because this is a random post, here are two more random photos:

Lola, my pretty car.

And best friends (not really, but they really do like each other most of the time):

I don't know why the picture came out kind of squished.  But if I'm too lazy to go get my blog list, I'm definitely too lazy to fix the picture.

Have a good weekend!

On Loss & Retail Therapy

I had a rough day today.  Sometimes I will go for days (even weeks) without having a rough day, and then other days (like today), they just knock the wind out of me.  It takes me a while to recover.

I lost my best friend.  Hopefully it’s only temporary.  Hopefully I will get her back soon.

Some days I do pretty good with it (or as my French friend Michele would say ‘pretty and good’….she thought this was the expression instead of ‘pretty good’…so cute!).  But other days, it knocks me flat off my feet.  I wake up angry.  And sad.  But mostly angry.

I hope that with time my anger begins to fade.  I hope that someday things will get back to the way they used to be.  I hope.

Usually some retail therapy helps me on these rough days.  I think it’s because it’s a distraction.  But I can’t just go anywhere….it has to be like a bookstore, or a store like Anthropologie or Francesca’s.

Today over my lunch break I hit two out of the three.  I dropped into Francesca’s to look at their handbags.  I have been looking for months for a new one.  And I can ALWAYS find a bag I love at Francesca’s.  Always. 

Today was no different:

It’s not me (I don’t usually do ‘shiny’), but I love the springy color and the shape and the size, and yes, even the shiny.

After that, I headed to Barnes and Noble to pick up the brand new fiction (although semi-autobiography) book by one of my favorite actresses:

Lauren Graham.  She’s amazing.  I love her in everything.  She said in an interview that Diane Keaton told her she should write a book, so she did.  Ha ha.  I hope it’s good.

I hope that my little day of retail therapy will help.  I hope my rough days become farther apart.  Time does amazing things….I hope it will work its magic on me.

Getaway

This past weekend, my husband and I took a nice weekend trip to Phoenix.  Because sometimes, you just gotta get the heck out of town!

It was much needed.  We've both been extremely busy and stressed out with life in general, so it was WONDERFUL to take a step back and get away for a couple of days.

We took our new car...mine was about to die, so it was time to trade it in:

We left on Friday after work, and got to Phoenix around midnight.  The sky was really beautiful on the way there.  We even got rained on a little bit!  Which is a miracle in the southwest.

We stayed at the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown. It was within walking distance to many restaurants and the ballpark.  It was a nice hotel.   Nice rooms, nice lobby, nice everything.  And fairly inexpensive too!  We booked last minute, maybe that’s why?  They only had a couple of rooms left, so maybe they were trying to fill them up?  Who knows.

I loved this cool lighting feature in the lobby:

 Saturday morning, we slept in a little bit and then went to Scratch French Café for a late breakfast.  The service was poor, but the food was good.  I liked the atmosphere too…slightly quirky and eclectic.  Right downtown, just a couple of blocks from our hotel.

 After our breakfast, we picked up our car from the hotel parking garage and drove to Tempe to Ikea.  Ikea is a ‘must stop’ when visiting any city that has one.

 We (I) didn’t go too nuts.  We purchased some new silverware, which we really needed, along with some new silverware holders.  Some bookends, both for home and for my husband’s office at work.  A fake plant (don’t judge…we have cats that eat plants).  Some travel bags that I fell in love with and little travel bottles.  Two large clay pots for outside.  A vertical TV stand for our bedroom (a steal at only $14.99).  Some cute little Hannah-sized dishes for her food.  Etc, etc.

We managed to get through the whole store and have a snack at the cafeteria in about 2 hours.

Then we headed back downtown, parked our car at the hotel, and walked to Chase Field to catch a Diamondbacks vs. Phillies baseball game. 

My husband found a good deal online for club seats that were four rows behind home plate. 

I am not a huge baseball fan, but going to real games is SO MUCH FUN.  Especially in club seats.  J  Good drinks, good food, good baseball.  

See this guy?

It's Ryan Howard.  He was on an episode of The Office a couple of weeks ago.  Hilarious.

After 6:00 when it had cooled off a bit, they opened the roof:

The Diamondbacks lost unfortunately (bummer), but it was a good game.  Here we are.  Trying to get my husband to act normal in a picture is not an easy task.  The last one was the best I could do.

Sunday morning we packed up our car and left it in the parking lot while we walked to another little café for breakfast.  We had a leisurely breakfast, and then walked across the street for the 10:00 a.m. showing of Iron Man 3.  Good movie!

 After that we picked up our car for the final time and started the drive back home, stopping a few times along the way.  We drove a different way home, the more scenic route.  It did not disappoint!  It took a bit longer, but it was very pretty.

It was SUCH a nice weekend.  So nice to get away, even for just a couple of days. 

And, we got to add some more pins to our 'places traveled together' map:

P.S. - our car did really well....it's a good road trip car!

Another P.S. – our animals were in good hands while we were gone.  Our cats were being watched by our house sitter and the dogs spent the weekend at Grandma’s house, where they got hamburgers for dinner, got walked 3 times per day and had free reign of the couch.  I’m pretty sure they didn’t want to come home! 

Trois Années

We celebrated our 3 year anniversary last month.  Three years!!!  It's gone fast.  But that's good I think.

The beautiful flowers that my husband got me:

The roses were beautiful.  They were striped!  I'd never seen striped roses before.

He had the florist add 3 calla lilies - one for each year we've been married.  Calla lilies were our wedding flowers.

He also got me a really cool gift.  But I'll have to post about that later, because we haven't hung it up yet.  It was something that I seen in Chicago when we were there!

It was a great anniversary!  11 more months till quatre années!

Nebraska

I love my family. 

I know this is a very ‘blanket’ statement and most people can say this about their families, but I truly believe I have one of the best families out there.  I feel very blessed, and sometimes wonder how I got so lucky to get them.

Last month, I went for a short (but very fun) visit.

I arrived late Friday night (actually early Saturday morning).  Mom and Dad were there to greet me at the airport.  I crashed in the guest bedroom and slept solid until 8:00 the next morning.  Then, the three of us went to breakfast.  And then to visit Grandma.  And then back to their house to wait for my nephews to arrive.

Oh, how I love these two.  They are so stinkin funny!

Here they are, the younger proving to me that he could carry the weight of the older one on his back.

I call the photo above 'The Two-Headed Monster'.

They crack me up.

We went to the Husker store and a few other places.  It was nice to be with them.

Saturday night was our family dinner. 

This one greeted me with a fantastic hug.

And this one is WALKING!!!

And he makes car noises as he pushes his cars and trucks (which were my brothers when he was little).  It is the cutest thing.

AND…he is going to be a big brother.  We found out that night that Baby #3 is expected to arrive in December!!!! 

I am excited.  My brother and sister-in-law make adorable GOOD kids.  Seriously….these kids are sweet and polite and can do no wrong in my eyes.  J

I mean seriously, look at how cute he is:

Sunday morning, we headed to the Omaha zoo.

On the way, watching 'Lady and the Tramp':

The weather was a little iffy, but the rain held off thank goodness.

We rode the 'Skyfari'.  This is my brother, my nephew and my niece:

Me and my Momma:

Why hello gorgeous.  Nice eyelashes!

(Giraffes are my favorite, so that's pretty much the only animal I took pictures of)

It was a fun day. 

Sunday night me, Mom and Dad had a nice dinner at Panera.  We talked and talked.

Monday was a me, Mom and Grandma day.  It was so nice.  We went to a lot of the local stores in Lincoln.  A couple of them were giant old houses that had been converted into gift shops.

We met my brother for lunch.

And then shopped some more. 

My Grandma is awesome.  J  She is so proper and polite, yet she is so funny too.

It was a good trip.  I plan to go back in the fall.  And then again shortly after my new niece/nephew arrives.

I love my family!

P.S. - my flight back (which was straight to Denver and then back to ABQ) got cancelled, so they put me on a different flight, I mean flightS.  Here's how I got home:

It was a LONG day!