plants attack!

I have poison ivy on my butt! How does that happen?

Also, a huge tree limb fell onto our house last night, and Brian and I both probably almost had a heart attack. It was around 4:15 AM, so it woke us up in a scary manner. Choxie was even halfway under the bed when we turned the light on! “Limb” makes it sound insignificant, but that tree is huge, and it’s giant trunk splits into about 4 giant limbs, and one of these tree-sized limbs was what fell. Anyway, I think our house avoided any damage (somehow), so we just have to borrow a chainsaw or something so we can get the thing off our roof. Sometime soon, we have to get someone over there to see if that tree needs to be cut down or not. We’ve been thinking about it for a while, but now, we really want to figure out our tree situation.

Tonight is TV night! We’re skipping pizza for more exciting choices, but we’re going to go to the Pattons’ to check out the possibly new doggy!

I am so very tired. I can’t wait to go to bed tonight!

GOOD THING – no roof repair necessary, and we’re not dead!
BAD THING – got lots I want to do around the house in less than a week before people come over

hola

Today is hump day! I am so glad that this week has finally reached it’s halfway point. It surely did start out slow and rocky!

Choxie fell off the window sill yesterday evening while I was watching. It was sad 😦 , but she was fine. She jumped right back up. I just felt bad because she fell when she turned her head way around to see me in the window!

I’m going to Sam’s Deli for lunch! It’s Kristi’s birthday, so we’re celebrating, and I can’t think of a better way. That is, unless we could have another ice cream party this week! We did it last week, and it was awesome.

*EDIT: Everyone else is going to Zoe’s, but I’m still going to Sam’s because I don’t love Zoe’s, and it’s expensive, so I’m getting cheap lunch that I love. TOOT!

Tomorrow is TV night, and we are going to the Pattons’ so we can visit the doggy they’re watching this week! Tonight, Carrie & Dan are bringing their dog over to play with Choxie. Doggie date! They haven’t seen each other in a while, and they love to play. They’re going to be muddy messes by the time she’s picked back up, but that’s okay.

Next week, we’re finally having two of Brian’s friends over for dinner and Rock Band! They’ve requested me make homemade lasagna, so I will. It’s going to be fun! We can turn it into a party celebrating the fact that Emily is back to work at EWTN after leaving for a little while. I know the guys are glad to have her back!

What I thought was a bug bite on my butt is now looking more like poison ivy. Wonderful!

I am tired of my nose bleeding!

Sunday is Sheena’s birthday party! And next Saturday is my mom’s 50th brithday! We’re going to visit her next weekend. If I could only figure out what to get her!

GOOD THING: lunch is soon
BAD THING: rainy weather

random pics

Here are some random pictures taken recently. Sorry I haven’t blogged much lately! Work has been super busy, and I usually blog while I’m there.

YUM – This is the chocolate equivalent to the extra yummy vanilla protein drink they have. This one is #2 in taste, but it’s still good.

What a cute little bug we found at the botanical gardens! He was so tiny. Or she. Who knows? We never will!

SO DELICIOUS. That’s all there is to say. They’re made by Mr. P’s Deli in Bluff Park, but for whatever reason, they thought Montego Joe’s was a better brand name for cookies.

These are my sweet little bird salt & pepper shakers. They’re really sky blue, but all my pictures have a yellow tint since I took them in the dining room.

My lights in the back yard! They’re cute.

 

This is where Choxie likes to sit now, especially in the mornings – in the kitchen window sill! I can’t believe she fits up there, but she loves it. She has to jump onto the AC unit as a stepping stone, but she sits up there just like our neighbor’s cat sits inside their kitchen window the exact same way. They must sit up there and play the staring game. Oh brother.

Awwwwww!

publix problems

I hate the Publix on Green Springs! It’s the worst one ever. I always say this, and it never happens, but I’m going to say it again. I am going to stop going there and drive back to the Vestavia Publix that we used to go to. I am so tired of this store being out of everything I want! \

GOOD THING: only 1 more hour of work today!
BAD THING: didn’t end up buying the sweet rocking chairs I wanted last night after seeing they’re not gray, they’re brown

this week

will be awesome! I’m going to make sure of it. Tonight is a new episode of Dance Your Ass Off, and I find that show entertaining. I will also hopefully go grocery shopping and take Choxie for a walk. We walked’jogged 2.5 miles yesterday up monstrous hills and all! I was proud of myself, and I am mostly proud of her because she behaved so well (she usually does fine with walks, though). She was only spooked at first by the cars whizzing by us faster than she is used to. That is due to jerks driving WAY too fast on South Forrest. She got over it, though, and all went smoothly after we got onto different roads. She even walked by several dogs (and people) and completely ignored them. Yay, Chox! Someone drove by us and honked, but I have no idea who it was. I’m sure it was someone that recognized me from church/work, but I have no idea who. I would rather people NOT honk right beside us in a giant, fast SUV when my dog is already nervous around loud, fast cars, but that’s ok; the person was just saying hello. One of my favorite things about walks in our neighborhood is unexpectedly seeing people I know! I love to chat with people on the sidewalk or in their yard. It just seems so neighborly and nice.

We had plans of asking the Carters to go with us to try a new restaurant out at their happy hour for cheap food, but they are at the beach and the lake this week. Maybe we can do it next week!

I think my friend Kaitlin is coming to visit us this weekend! We’ll probably go to the lake, but that all depends on when she gets here. I haven’t heard from her, so it could be Thursday, Friday or Saturday. Who knows?

Maybe if the weather stays decent for another day or two I can work more in the woods behind our fence. I did that during the winter, but the summer has ruined all my previous work, and the entire area is grown up again with giant vines, poison ivy, briars and other crap. I was planning on staying out of it all until this winter after the snakes will be out of commission, but I really want to make it possible to at least walk around in there. Our neighbor was trimming some trees behind his fence, so he was back there with his dog, Murphy. Choxie LOVES Murphy, so I let her back there to find him, and they played and played! She also found something back there and kept barking at it, so I was worried she’d come across a snake, but Miles (neighbor) walked over to check it out and said she’d found an animal hole –  a BIG animal hole. We don’t know what animal lives in there, but Choxie sure was interested!

I’m pretty sure I will have poison ivy again plus about 10 mosquito bites after working for just a few minutes out there yesterday. I need some snake chaps and bug bombs before I go out there again, I think.

I promise to post some pictures soon. Not of snake chaps and bug bombs.

GOOD THING: VBS has started and will be over before we know it!
BAD THING: This awesome weather can’t last forever! It’s perfect!

intentions

I took several pictures around the house the other night in hopes to post a new blog entry complete with pictures! However, they haven’t been uploaded onto the computer yet, so you’ll have to wait!

I haven’t had the most fun week at work and stuff, but it has really gotten better just in the last day, and today is great so far! Most of that is just knowing it’s Friday, but other good things happened, too.

I ordered fabric to cover my 2 thrift store chairs, and it’s going to be cool. The best part is that the fabric was so CHEAP! It will probably be here soon considering the swatch took no time to get here.

I’m also going to some stores this afternoon and hope to get some good stuff like a really cheap new shirt maybe? and a set of scales for us just like Sheena got for them. You know, we have to get everything alike according to our woeful husbands haha. When you get awesome stuff at awesome prices, it’s only right to share info and copy!

That is all for now, but I will try to post more soon!

GOOD THING: able to give a gift this week and Casey brought me more music!
BAD THING: I’m not going to put anything here!

have you had these?

YUM. This picture is tiny, but these cookies are the bomb. They’re Back to Nature peanut butter cookies. They have no cholesterol, no trans fat, no hydrogenated oil, no high fructose corn syrup and no artificial preservatives, flavors or colors! That doesn’t mean they’re awesome for you, but those things have to count for something. Try them! I got mine at Publix, but I’m sure they’re at other places. I shared my whole box today at work until they ran out. Sad times!

We love this milk, too!

Milk from a carton tastes good, too. Everyone learned that in kindergarten. I have to say that this brand is good, too, in Sheena’s defense:

I would suggests lots of these products put together for one super sweet snack time.

Oh yeah – tomorrow’s Thursday, and that means it’s TV night!

GOOD THING: Brian bought some stuff to finish his bird feeder project.
BAD THING: My knee bothered me all day today, so I didn’t go on a walk tonight. Boo.

summer at work

After lots of slow weeks at work, summer is now well underway, and fall preparation has finally kicked in. I am now so busy I can’t keep up! Surely it will slow down soon enough. This is the busiest time of the year for me; that’s for sure.

Choxie has been kind of wild the past few days. It is starting to get annoying, but at least she sleeps through the whole night now.

Sunday, we had a street meeting so everyone could get to know each other since there are several houses on our street with fairly new inhabitants. The meeting was pretty funny, and everyone seemed nice. We decided to have a street-wide yard sale in August, and I’m excited about it. Later that evening, we’re all going to get together for a street party literally in the street since we’re going to block both ends of our road. Brian and I are in charge of putting up one particular yard sale sign and hanging balloons on it. There were so many people that none of us have to do much at all, and that is awesome. We also found out that we have some super hilarious neighbors, and that is great! I really like this one couple that we finally officially met. Maybe we can all hang sometime!

Oh yeah! I totally went to The InnerChange, a church in McCalla Sunday for a program I’m in (or was, because Sunday was the last meeting). Anyway, that church is awesome, and I am going to go back sometime. You should come with me!

We also went to the movies with the Pattons on Saturday to see Brothers Bloom. I loved it! It was nice because I don’t remember ever seeing a trailer for the movie, so I didn’t have a clue what to expect. That made the whole movie so much better, but I’m pretty sure I would’ve liked it a lot either way.

That’s enough.

GOOD THING: excited about Dr. Matthew Sleeth coming to speak at Trinity in August
BAD THING: never enough time in the day

getting some

I am getting new tires today after work! No more blowout concerns after today.

Brian and I will be grocery shopping while that takes place. I hope I can find something new to cook that will entice me! I am so tired of all chicken, burgers, and everthing else I can think of. Nothing sounds good anymore!

GOOD THING: finally get to leave work in about 10 minutes
BAD THING: My mom started her radiation today, so I hope it went okay!

long lake weekend #2

The long holiday weekend at the lake was fun! It seemed like it lasted longer than the previous lake weekend, which doesn’t make sense because it was almost exactly the same amount of time. We did lots more stuff this time, I guess, so maybe that is why.

Anyway, we had fun with lots of family around – some I’d met and some I had not. We had some of our own overnight guests at our house Friday night (at the lake), and tons more came over Saturday for lunch which involved BBQ, homemade ice cream! and swimming with the young people before, during and after the 2:00 boat parade (there is also one at 10:00). I chatted with Brian’s cousin’s girlfriend that I’d never met before, and she seemed really nice and cool. I heard lots of stories being retold about old times, of course, and the older cousins seemed to have a good time recalling stuff just like any family get together calls for. We went on some boat rides, caught the fireworks show from the water, and swam with family.

We also wakeboarded with Dan & Carrie before Brian hurt his knee too bad to go anymore and I ripped the skin off all my fingers trying to work in the yard without gloves on. I jumped higher than ever! I’m proud of myself, but I am not happy enough until I jump much farther/higher. I know for sure I can do it now! And it’s not as scary as it used to be. My highest jump was actually the easiest; I guess I did it right for once because I am starting to become less scared. We also got Choxie to swim! We keep standing her in the shallow part and trying to show her that there are things like sticks and weeds to eat in the water, and that helped. We finally tag teamed her and got her to actually swim out to deeper water to come to me and a stick or something, then she’s take it and swim back to Brian while he sat in the shallow part. She did it like 3 times! It was exciting. I think by next year, she’ll love the water. She also fell in a time or two, and she is not a fan of that.

I also completed a successful Wal-Mart trip and scored a new fishing pole with some bait and a tacklebox, and I got a new shirt for $9!

Saturday, we realized my car had a flat tire on it. this was around 6:30 or 7:00 PM on the 4th of July, so there was no fixing it then. We stayed overnight and took my car to a tire store the next day around lunch time. We aired it back up, and it stayed inflated, so we drove it in. It was still aired up when we got there, so that was great. Then, they put my car on the lift, and we all saw that my tire had a giant crack all along the edge of the inside, meaning a blowout was about to happen. I’m so glad it deflated Saturday! We could’ve had really bad happenings on the way back to Birmingham. The tire store didn’t have any tires to fit my car, but he did find a used one to get us home on. I have to get new tires this week on my car; it needed all new tires anyway, but we’d been putting it off. I’m so glad I didn’t have any more trouble out of them than I did this weekend.

When we got back, we met Bobby! He is our new friend by way of the Pattons, and he is moving here soon. That’s what I heard, so he has to. We watched Hot Rod and played some Scene It, and the girls actually got lots of points even if the boys won. No one can argue that we did better than we usually do.

Today, we’re all back to work. It’s been alright so far. Lunch was fun with lots of laughs, and I have already been to the pet store to get Choxie some more food since we ran out this morning. She will get a new toy when I get home! I think I actually found something she can’t destroy in 10 minutes.

I’m thinking about going to the chiropractor after work to try and fix my pitiful neck. I also need to go return some books that I am saving over $17 on! I’m still happy about that. And I need to go pick up some contacts I ordered about 2 weeks ago. Maybe I can go for a walk with the dog tonight around 7:30 and not burn up!

If we have any pictures from the lake, I will put them up soon.

GOOD THING: I’m still in the mood to work on organizing our basement.
BAD THING: Rain in hot weather calls for even worse humidity!