Been Awhile. . .

The end of my week completely ate me up. Way too busy at work.

But, that doesn't really matter.

The weather was beautiful this weekend! I spent the weekend with the Fam--shopping, eating, drinking, and celebrating my Grandpa's 75th birthday (more to come on that on Tuesday).

I left some scrappy goodies at a friend's rummage sale and made almost $200! I plan to re-invest every last penny of it in more goodies!

Today, I returned home to do all the things I've been meaning to do for weeks and weeks: laundry, grocery shopping, balancing the checkbook.

And, I posted a few LOs for Scrap-tastic May design team.

Glad this didn't happen to me. . .

I had a dinner meeting tonight at a fabulous Chinese restaurant.

Poor Brad. He had to stay at home all by himself and make a frozen pizza.

He's such a honey--he did all the dishes and cleaned the kitchen before popping in his pizza and putting his feet up to watch a little 24 (beep. beep. beep). The perfect night for me (clean house) and the perfect night for him (quality tv).

Then, the unthinkable happened.

He dropped the pizza on its way out of the oven, face-down in the oven. SPLAT!
No pizza for Brad.

As if that weren't horrible enough, some of the flaming hot cheese and sauce landed right on his toe. Hungry Brad burned his toe!

Poor, hungry, little burnt-toe Brad.

Dear Driver of the Red Grand Prix,

What you did today was mean and inconsiderate.

You saw me waiting patiently with my turn signal on for a parking space. I even moved my car as far over as possible to allow people to pass me so as not to create a traffic jam in the parking lot. I was being kind and patient.

What did you do? You took advantage of me, and you swooped your car around me and stole my spot.

That was a very mean thing to do. I was very angry.

I honked at you. At yelled at you from in my car. I thought about leaving you a note. Heck, I even thought about smashing into your car.

Oh, Red Grand Prix driver, you just wait. The universe is a fair place. It's only a matter of time before someone is just as rude to you as you were to me. Karma's a bitch.

Respectfully,
Driver of the Blue Escape

Did I miss the memo?

I'm certainly not a true Beauty Queen. I'm not really into fashion or labels. But, I am a pretty girlie girl. I love to wear skirts and cute shoes and even tights.

But, somewhere along the line I must have missed some kind of beauty memo.

The one that tells girls the secret of how to do their hair.

I experimented with my hair this morning (diffuser and lots of gel and curly stuff).

The end result was something that actually made one of my colleagues suggest a de-frizzing product to me.

TOTAL mess.

That's one of the things I love about working in a middle school. I am surrounded by 300 adolescent girls who are always making some kind of a strange fashion or beauty statement. I didn't really stick out all that terribly.

Surprises!

I got to hang out with Miss Natalie (who will turn 2 on Saturday!) tonight. That wasn't a surprise, but it sure was fun!

Here are my list of surprises for today:

1. Left my cell phone at Nicky's and won't have time to pick it up until Friday night
2. Somehow lost my garage door opener (maybe it's somewhere in my car)
3. Received a completely unexpected graduate honors award (in recognition for outstanding achievement in the pursuit and completion of the MSE degree)
   
4. Received the last of my Pub Calls prizes--a completely unexpected package from ilove2create.com containing a kit of absolutely fabulous goodies!

In other news. . .

• Grey's is new tomorrow night! HOORAY! Unfortunately, I have a work thing until after 8pm. Thank God for DVR!
• There is a cyber-crop at Scrap-Tastic for the next week. Maybe this will get me in the scrappy mood
  

Hoola Hoop A Go Go

Fitness is not my thing. Never has been. I'd much rather eat ice cream. But, I think I may have found the latest fitness craze. And the best part--I could probably eat ice cream while partaking in it.

For your viewing pleasure. . . not one but three (that's right folks, THREE) pictures of me doing the fitness hoola. Enjoy.

Wowza!

If I ever run a company, I think I might make it a general policy to call workers on the night before they are supposed to return to work after a perfect vacation and extend their time off by an extra day.

I totally needed one more day. A day for laundry and grocery shopping and checkbook balancing. A day for pajama-wearing and lounging. A day to get my personal life in order before I needed to worry about all the professional dilemmas swirling around my job right now.

San Diego--Top 10

We are officially home safe and sound. The bags are unpacked, and we scavenged around the house to find something for dinner.

Thumbs Up
1. Balboa Park
Totally and completely makes me wish I lived in San Diego. Gorgeous.
2. Annie Leibovitz exhibit
Another reason to love Balboa Park--there was a fabulous Annie Leibovitz exhibit. Seriously. If I ever win a million dollars, I might spend it hiring Annie Leibovitz to teach me to take pictures. Loved it!3. Padres Game
My bro is seriously connected around San Diego and scored us great seats to a baseball game. The Padres didn't win, but good times were still had by all. And, did I mention how awesome my brother is? He thought to pack Cadbury Mini Eggs for me to snack on during the game.
3. The happiest place on earth
We spent 12+ hours at Disney where we rode and ton of rides, waited a bunch, and did some completely hilarious people watching. I might have taken a photo or two of the people watching from behind my dark sunglasses. Stay tuned.

Thumbs Down
1. Someone hit the rental car.
The chartreuse Focus got hit while parked outside of Hash House A Go-Go. The person left a phone number, but it wasn't really theirs. Didn't turn out to be all that stressful, as we chose to purchase the rental insurance. (And for the record "a go-go" means to enjoy in excess. This is completely a phrase I need to use more.)

2. We didn't get to go fishing.
We got up at 4am to get to the fishing place by 5:30 am. I'm not a fan of hobbies that require getting up before the sun rises! The waves were too strong because of the wind, so the trip was canceled. Sad Brad, but happy Barb.


And the very best part of coming home?
I found 4 packages on my front step.
Can you even believe it!?! The mailman left me four packages while we were gone. Can you even believe how generous he is? Highlights include prizes from a PubCalls scavenger hunt I won back on February. Goodies were from Island Girl Scrapwear and Serendipity. Other boxes were my Jenni Bowlin and Cocoa Daisy kits. Hooray!

There's more. There's so much more. But, for now, this will have to do.

Californ-IA

Hello from sunny California! Where there isn't any snow in sight!

Had a completely smooth trip yesterday. Brad was totally cute on the plane. He hasn't flown for a very long time and had a window seat. He looked like a little kid with his face all pressed against the glass. Every few minutes he would blurt out, "This is so frickin' cool!" and point out a tree or a rock or a lake or some other totally awesome thing he saw out the window.


Had a killer seafood dinner with my brother and his girlfriend. Brad and I are the first people in the fam to meet Kat, so I couldn't quite bring myself to bust out the Big Bad Camera at dinner. I was afraid she'd think it was a little weird. So, there's not a picture to be had.

After dinner, we went to the bar attached to our hotel, the Red Fox Room. No need to bust out the camera there because a photo most certainly could not have captured the action. There was a piano bar where an ancient man was tickling the ivories. He was accompanied by an even older man playing the clarinet or saxophone or trumpet. Various elderly men and women from the audience took turns singing along to a wide assortment of jazz classics. Completely and totally entertaining! Only my brother would be able to find a place like this!

Today we are going to hang out at Balboa Park and go to a Padres game. I predict a very chill day.

Great Hair--Priceless

Gourmet hair cut = $35
Super-strength conditioner = $26
Tip for stylist of the year = $10
Great Hair = Priceless

(Pardon the mediocre picture. Brad is still working on his photography skills.)

I'm hoping to blog a bit from the road to keep y'all up to date on my vacation happenings.

Happy Easter!

Disaster Zone!

To save a few bucks I decided to go to a different salon for a cut and color this morning.

I should have known as soon as I saw grapevine wallpaper and tacky linoleum decorating the entire place that I needed to leave.

I should have known when the beautician was wearing wind pants and had teased hair that I needed to leave.

I should have known when I saw the pest control man spraying the corners of the salon while I was getting a shampoo that I needed to leave.

I should have known as soon as I saw the cardboard flyer with dyed swatches of plastic hair in it that I needed to leave.

I should have known when she applied my color to wet hair and set me under the dryer (on a fake wicker lawn chair) for 45-minutes that I needed to leave.

I should have known that when my entire haircut took less than 10-minutes that I needed to leave.

I should have known when she attacked my hair with an entire can of aerosol spray that I needed to leave.

I left the salon, cried on the way home, and immediately attempted to wash the stench and residue of cheap product from my hair. I couldn't get it all out. I still smell horrible.

Brad had an appointment at my normal salon at 4:30. I cried on the phone hoping it would be enough for him to give me his appointment, so I could start all over. It wasn't. He now has great hair.

I am going--at 10:30 tomorrow morning--to get a new haircut from someone I trust.

Never again--ever!--will I try to save a few bucks on a hair cut. You get what you pay for.

Na, Na.

I know. This is rude because I'm bragging. But, I'm going to do it anyway.

I'M GOING ON VACATION!
That's right, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm leaving on a jet plane.
I'm staying in a hotel.
I even rented a car.

AND. . .
here's the best part.
I'm bringing Brad along.

That's right.
We are taking our first, real, adult, non-nature vacation.
No hiking.
No paddling.
No sleeping in a tent.
No bug bites.
No washing my hair with a bucket of cold water.

I do have to say, though, that I'm afraid I've become just a little tiny bit of a vacation Nazi. (Brad is far less than pleased about this.)

I'm all about the plans.
What are we doing Monday?
What about Tuesday?
When will we _________?
What about __________?

I need the questions answered before we get on the plane. I just have this real fear that we are going to miss out on something if we don't have plans.

Sunny San Diego is calling my name is LESS THAN ONE WEEK, folks. LESS THAN ONE WEEK!

Menu

I don't quite know what's wrong with me, but I'm completely not hungry.

This has been going on for a few days now.
Nothing sounds good.
Nothing looks good.
Nothing smells good.

I went to the grocery store on Sunday and bought $90 worth of groceries (and some tulips). I don't want to eat any of it.

Brought lunch to work today. Didn't eat any of it.

Made dinner tonight. Hardly ate any of it.

Nothing looks good.

Suggestions? (besides going on an all ice cream all the time diet)

Been awhile . . .

Haven't been around since Tuesday, but I have no idea exactly what it is that I've been doing since Tuesday. So, here are some scrappy goods to share with you. They're my design team work for Scrap-tastic for April. Cherry Arte is the April sponsor.

The dudes at Christmas time. They are getting so big!


Another LO from our wedding. I know. It was almost three years ago, and I should probably find something else to scrap. But, there are too many pictures from that day! Whenever, I'm desperate for something to scrap, I know I can go in the wedding pictures and find something.


A few cards. The first one ("hi") is a total scrap-lift from an Archiver's make-and-take.

Last, but certainly not least, is this totally fun little mini-album. It's full of quotes from movies and uses all kinds of fun little goodies. I started it FOREVER ago and just finally finished it. See! Who says I'll never get all my projects done!