Busy Busy Busy

Well, it was another banner weekend in the ole Pop household. My parents were here and whisked Boy Pop off to my brother's house in town for a couple of nights and Dr Pop and I were left to our own devices. And we actually went o.u.t! Not too far away, but we got out of the house, just the two of us, and hung out and drank some beer and ate a little food and it was so much fun!

Later, we stopped by the grocery store to pick up the ingredients for my homemade Bloody Mary mix. That was our contribution to the tailgate the following morning at "oh holy hell who set this game time" o'clock! In other words, we got up at 7:30. After a night out without the boy.

Then we kicked Baylor's ass. By "we" I mean "Texas." Yes, we beat the "Lord's Team" on Saturday. With the game pretty much in hand, we left in the 4th quarter to haul ass up to Boy Pop's t-ball game. We made it just in time for Boy Pop's first at bat and he knocked the stuffing out of that ball! My kid can swing a bat!

Post game, we went home and Boy Pop went with his grandparents again. And when we got home, we discovered that we needed to replace two of my living room chairs. Like, immediately. I won't go into detail except to say, "Fucking cat!" Anyway. We did a quick search and I went to a local store, only to come home empty handed. And then it was time to clean up as we had people coming over.

Sunday, we met my parents and Boy Pop for lunch, then spent TWO HOURS at the ski store, getting ourselves outfitted for an upcoming ski trip. Since we had not been in three years, and literally ALL of my ski clothes were old and horrible, we had a lot to get. Two. Hours.

And then it was time to relax! Finally! We said goodbye to my folks and Boy, Dr, and I went home. Whew!

Writer's Block

Ah, I have not much to say this week...

Dr Pop went out of town for work. And in my usual "I hate when he goes out of town so I go overboard on household projects" fashion, last night I...

• Sort of cleaned out my closet, removing spring clothes, moving in some fall and winter clothes, weeding through clothes I haven't worn in years...
• Played with my son
• Dealt with a major meltdown temper tantrum
• Put son to bed
• Did laundry
• Put away some of the laundry
• Gave myself a pedicure
• Gave myself a manicure
• Did a Philosophy micro-delivery peel

Every few months or so (like when winter finally turns into spring and summer finally turns into fall), I do a closet organization. I go through the clothes I have, move out the stuff that won't be worn for several months, and bring in the clothes that are relevant for today. I also go through all the clothes I haven't worn in forever, and try to force myself into reality. The reality is that I have not worn that pale orange cashmere sweater in the past 5 years and I doubt that I will have it on this year, either. The key word is "try" though.

I have this nagging little voice inside my head thinking that there is definitely an off chance that this item will A) come back in style or B) I will wear it this year for sure! I'm not the only one who suffers from this malady by the way. Dr Pop has PLENTY on his side of the closet that fit that description, too! And we both have tons of clothes that just hang in the closets in the office, guest room, and upstairs hall.

I really need someone like Peter Walsh to come into my house and force us to get rid of the crap we don't use or wear!

About my nails. I have red fingers and toes. I've been staying away from the red nail polish lately as I wanted to mix it up a bit. But I'm in a red mood. And since I was feeling spunky, I decided to polish my fingernails, too. Back in my early twenties, I got regular manicures and pedicures. I always had beautifully polished nails. I tapered off the nail polish after a while and would only get a manicure every few months or so, and I rarely painted my fingernails myself.

After Boy Pop was born, I stopped with the nail polish completely. There just seemed to be too much else to do and since I cannot stand chipped nail polish, I just went without it altogether. Well last night, I changed my mind and decided to put that pretty red nail polish on my fingernails, too.

It's already smudged.

How Did You Spend Your Saturday?

Ugh.

I've done way too much today... But I feel accomplished. See?

• Unclogged my bathroom drain
• Scrubbed the grill and all its parts
• Cleaned out, scrubbed, and changed the litter box
• Grocery shopped
• Did the dishes
• Interviewed a new maid
• Straightened the house
• Played a game (this was fun!)
• Did 5 loads of laundry
• Put away 4 loads of laundry
• Started preparations for company this evening

Now? It's time for drinks, football, boxing, and UFC!

After I make the jalapeno poppers...

Feeling Feisty

I've been in a somewhat feisty mood lately... And it's made me be more political in my writing. I'm normally one to shy away from the political arguments as they really do nothing but incite harsh feelings. For some reason, though, I cannot seem to help myself. Maybe it's reading part of a speech transcript that calls a baby a punishment. Maybe it's all the self-righteous writers out there who can't see the forest for the trees and cannot recognize that they are pots calling kettles black. I'll tell you one thing, though, I can see the appeal of both sides and I am anything but close-minded on a myriad of political issues. I've told you what I care about and it still rings true. Who will take less of my hard-earned money? Who is less of a pussy? Those two things will be what determines my vote on election day.

Enough of that, though. It's time to get back to this business of writing boring old updates of my life and commentary on the mundane world around me. ;)

This morning, when I woke up, I blearily looked at the temperature gauge that projects onto our bedroom ceiling. I had to look twice and then three times because I could not believe my eyes!

This morning, at 6:35AM, it was 66.7 degrees outside! There's been a cooler breeze blowing for the past several days and this morning, the thermometer reflected the shift.

Smell that? Feel that? It's that first crisp morning in months and months. It is the predecessor of fall and I'm in heaven!

Don't get me wrong, I love summer. I love it! It is beaches and vacations and a more casual and laid back atmosphere. It is ice cream and sno cones and swimming pools. It is shorts and innocence. I love it. And summer is no where close to being over. We have weeks of 90 degree days ahead of us to close out one of the hottest summers on record.

But! Last night I pulled out my Autumn Harvest cookbook. This morning's low temperature has me excited at the prospect of all sorts of fun things to come.

In my world, the onset of fall means...

• Football
• Tee ball
• Cute clothes
• Mild weather
• Boy Pop's birthday
• Halloween
• Holiday preparations
• Blankets
• More grilling
• Banana bread
• Stew
• Roasts
• Spice
• Organization

And so much more! The weather's changing and I'm feeling more feisty than ever before!

Backseat

I think that it is kind of obvious that blogging has been taking a backseat to the rest of my life here lately. It's not that I haven't done anything blog-worthy of late, in fact, it is quite the opposite!

August has been busy. So far, we've...

Ended the first half of the fiscal year of my company (always a pressure-filled time).
Gone to see Snoop Dogg.
Dealt with a crappy limo company.
Dealt with random stomach bug.
Celebrated birthdays of friends.
Gone to the lake.
Had two visits from my parents.
Planned a 5th birthday party.
Gone to the circus.
Gone to a dog's birthday party.
Changed hairdressers (LOVE my hair, by the way).
Gone to a back to school party complete with water slides, hot dogs, and sno-cones.
Lost my maid... AGAIN!!!!!
My cat got into rat poison. He's fine. So far. Little bastard.
Oh, and I'm now completely addicted to Facebook and Twitter. Urgh!

And the culmination of a quite busy month is a trip to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada for the opening weekend of college football and Labor Day Weekend.

Looking at my calendar, the University of Texas football schedule, and the fall tee-ball schedule, it seems that September, October, and November will be pretty much just as busy or busier than August. Good thing everything has been fun for the most part!

I'm sure I'll have more drawn out stories to tell, but to just sum up August:
We partied, we played, we swam, we ate, we laughed, we had a blast, we survived, and I have an awesome new hairdresser!

Oh Man!

Too many stories to tell... Saturday night, we hopped in a Hummer super stretch limo with 8 friends and went to see Snoop Doggy Dogg...

It was a wild evening fueled by beer, champagne, and Pom Martinis. And cookies and snacks (but no real dinner).

Snoop was bad ass. Bad. Ass.

We were pretty bad ass, too, with our "pimp" cups.

A great time was had by all, up until a little incident at the end of the night. I'm still waiting on the owner of the limo company to contact me with an official apology for the little piece of shit driver they sent us. If he doesn't contact me today, I'll be posting my letter to the company here.

For what it's worth, though, the police sided with us. ;)

I promise I'll share some of the stories. For now, they are just too jumbled...

Busy Little Bees* (A Weekend in Review)

Whew! What a weekend! Both busy and mundane all at the same time! Such is life in the suburbs, I suppose.

Saturday morning, we got up bright and early and went to a soccer game. *Incidentally, Boy Pop plays on the "Bees" team. Too funny. He did great until he was too tired/distracted to really get into the game. Because so few children showed up, he played the entire game. I watched and took pictures, with my heart in my throat every time someone got near him as the last thing I wanted was for him to A) reinjure his lip and B) injure something else. Those little kids play all-out and play rough!

Our team "won" again after our two ringers arrived and scored 10 goals. Then it was off to pick up breakfast tacos and go home. After eating, we planted three hibiscus trees out in the planters in our front yard to add some color to our yard and then tore out the dead hibiscus in back and planted its replacement.

By that point, I was exhausted and feeling quite lazy, so I went and laid down and watched a little TV. I may have taken a nap, too. But the nap was short-lived as we decided it was too gorgeous of a day to stay indoors. So we invited ourselves over to a friend's house with a pool. I got sun! Whoo hoo! It's a start, at least.

We made plans to have those friends over that evening, so we left and made a mad dash to the store to pick up essentials like FOOD and then I cleaned like a crazy woman! I scrubbed the half-bath, dusted the common areas (living, dining, breakfast, playroom), cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed, swept, mopped, and did a load or two of laundry. All in the space of two hours!

Then, THEN! Our company did not show up as their little boy, who is Boy Pop's age, fell asleep. Boy Pop had cleaned his own playroom and even had drawn him a picture. He was very disappointed, but we gave him some extra love and attention, so all was good. I made picadillo and we watched UFC. Every fighter we wanted to win, won!

We then decided to watch the Hopkins/Calzaghie (sp?) fight that we had recorded on HBO. I was on the end of a bottle of wine, and fell asleep with the glass in my hand on the couch. Dr Pop rescued the wine, though! I woke up just in time to see the end of the fight, but decided I just needed to go to bed. I left the food out for Dr Pop to clean up and he did!

We all slept in on Sunday. I then made picadillo breakfast tacos (Did I mention I love picadillo? So easy and yummy!). Dr Pop had to buckle down to work on some massive spreadsheet/tally sheet deal that was due ASAP, Boy Pop wanted to play sesamestreet.com, so I took the opportunity to go run. One massive, unending stitch in my side turned the run into a walk, but I managed to go for about 45 minutes, then come home and do 200 crunches. Go me!

Then it was my turn to get down to business... The business of cleaning our bedroom and bathroom. These are the rooms I neglect most often because no one ever sees them but my little family. So I dusted, vacuumed, scrubbed, mopped, wiped down baseboards, and changed sheets. Whew! Then I showered and we all went to the park for an hour.

Dr Pop threw some steaks on the grill later in the evening. A perfect end to a perfect weekend... Mundane or not.

Insane Week Last Week and other tales...

Hoo boy! I've got a lot of updating to do! And picture downloading. And fashion talking.

Dudes, my life has been unreasonably insane for the past week and a half or more. I've barely had time to breathe, much less update. So. Sorry about that. As soon as I get off my lazy ass and download a shitload of pictures from my camera, I promise to start updating.

But here's a tiny little taste of my world and everything in it (yeah, like anyone really cares!) and what has been driving me crazy for the past 10 to 14 days or so:

• Drove to my hometown for Easter.
• Had a wonderful weekend with my family.
• Mom took me shopping.
• The only stressful thing about the first three bullet points was the fact that we had to drive 7 hours round trip. Nothing else to complain about there!
• My maid quit a month ago and I've been breaking my back in stubbornness and refuse to hire a new one. Therefore, I've been cleaning in all my "free" time.
• "Free" time? Ahhhhahahahahahahahaha!
• Spent 4.5 hours in the emergency room with Dr Pop. Everything's semi-okay now, but we are both perplexed by the fact that we still don't have a diagnosis.
• 53 days left to get into shape for my vacation.
• Plenty of work frustrations, mean people, etc. But you will not be seeing those stories. I'm not about to be fired.
• Cat poop.
• Cats who refuse to cover their poop.
• Laundry.
• A boy who has been wetting the bed, resulting in 8 loads of laundry for that alone due to the soakage of the bedding. Load #9 will be this evening.
• Etc.

Oh, I have lots to share. Maybe tomorrow...

It Was Bound to Happen

A couple of housekeeping items...

I now have ads. Don't worry, I'm not going to quit my day job. Apparently this is a "pay per click" dealio, and something like 1000 ads will have to be clicked for me to make a dollar. Given the current rate of traffic, that would mean if everyone who reads this blog, clicks an ad every time they come to my page, I'll have enough money for a twelve pack of Diet Cokes by May of 2012. Thank you in advance.

Also, one of my family members has stumbled upon this blog from over on You Tube. I knew that I couldn't keep this place a secret forever. Last night, as I was freaking out a little, racking my brain about some of my older blog posts, I realized something... If I took the effort to hit "publish," then I am okay with my family reading this. That being said, I'd rather they find this place by accident and I would REALLY rather my 80-year-old grandfather and 86-year-old grandmother not read this. I'm the "baby" in the family, on both sides, among all of my cousins. I don't want to destroy any illusions my grandparents may have about me.

That being said, some posts may disappear. And I've revised my "about me" post over there.

I posted my very first video on Saturday night. I also did my very first work with You Tube on Saturday. If you need a laugh today, you should watch. I'm still rolling with laughter each time I watch and I don't *think* it is because I'm biased. You be the judge. I won't be offended if you hate them.

I hope everyone has a great week and if you have today off, then pfffttt!!!!