Oh the drama that is Christmas Cards!

Last year I discovered a love for picture Christmas cards! Why? Because I don't have to write anything, I can just shove them in an envelope and address them and off they go! It suddenly became a no-brainer for me. (I know, I'm so lazy). So I was pretty excited to randomly take a picture I thought would be perfect for this years Christmas card. We happened to take the pic while we were en route to Grand Junction for Black Friday shopping and my sister in law Karen suggested pulling over and taking a pic of me and Greg since the back ground was just so pretty. Greg and my brother were following behind us so they didn't know what our plan was when we pulled over. Which is a good thing, otherwise Greg would have said to just keep going! So we took several pics and this is the one that I used on our Christmas cards.



I do wish that Greg would have been wearing his jacket too since I'm all bundled up and he's not, but what can I do? Well, that was mild in comparison to what happened next. Off to Wal-Mart I went to download our pics and find the "perfect" Christmas background. Then I wrote a cute little message in red writing. Everything looked great on the computer. Hmmm....well, something happened from the computer to the printers. When my cards finally arrived I was so excited I just glanced at them in the store but didn't really pay attention to them.

The next day I settled down to start enveloping them when I noticed that my message in the red writing was barley visible. And I'm not being a drama queen. I'm serious. So much for my not having to write anything plan. My cards sat on our table for a week while I tried to come up with a way to solve the problem. I finally broke down and wrote "Can you find our hidden message" on the back of each stinkin' card. I wasn't too happy about it but I figured what was a gal to do? And just FYI, my husband thinks to this day that I'm on drugs or something because he can't see the "hidden message" at all!

So on Tuesday I went to my friend Christina's house to watch a movie and our card was laying on her coffee table. She told me it drove her crazy trying to find our message but that her husband finally figured it out. (And then afterwards he wasn't very impressed. Like I said, I didn't do this on purpose!) So I thought, "Cool, people will figure it out!"

Then, last night, I get an email from a cousin with "Hidden Message" in the subject line. I thought, OK, either she found it, or she didn't and it's driving her crazy! So I open it, and all it says is, "when is the baby due?" Oh. My. God. Here is what quickly went through my head: "Am I really that fat?", "Is it because of my coat?", "Am I really that fat?", "What is EVERYONE ELSE going to think?", "Am I really that fat?"

I convinced myself that it was just the phrase "hidden message" and the fact that I was wearing a coat and Greg wasn't as to why she would think this. But of course I quickly got online and IM'd my sister (who as I suspected was online) to see if she got my card yet. And of course, thanks to the mysteries that surround the US Postal Service, she for some reason had not received hers yet, although my cousin lives further away. So unfortunately she wasn't able to voice her opinion as to if I looked pregnant. (Of course she did write, "have you really put on that much weight?" *sigh*)

So I fell asleep last night with visions of all the "Congratulations" emails I'd be receiving today. And of course when I told Greg the story this morning he said, "Well, that means my family is probably going to think the same thing. You know how bad my dad wants a grand child."

I was so thankful this morning when two of my aunts emailed to tell me that they found my hidden message! And I have yet to have anyone ask me today when the baby is due. But had I known that this little "hidden message" business would have drawn people to the conclusion that I was with child I would have just broke down and actually wrote on "real" Christmas cards. So there you have it! I'm officially not pregnant! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

p.s. I'm so not mad at my cousin. Because I can at least appreciate the great blog material she gave me! ;)

Who, me?

So I stumbled upon this cool website called typealyzer that can figure out what your personality is based on your blog. So I figured what the heck and that I'd give it a shot. Here is what it said about me:
The Performers
The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions

Hmmmm....let me think about this. First of all, the fact that it calls me a Performer? Well, I did minor in Theatre in college and love performing! Check!
I am a very visual person and I love home decor and color and smells! Check!
I do tend to live in my own little world. I've had many people tell me this. Check!
I like to help people to the best of my ability. In fact, my very first major was in counseling. Check!
And do I avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation? Check, Check, Check!

Although I do have to disagree with two things. As much as I love living in my own "bubble" I am such a planner. In fact, my "to do" list for tomorrow is sitting right beside me. And I think I'd make a pretty good manager as long as people do things my way ;)

So, to all my blogger friends, you should analyze your blog as well! I'm curious to see what type of friends I have!

Are you kidding me?

I'm sick. I've been dealing with this crap since Sunday. And it's nothing too drastically bad, but it's annoying. One minute my nose is running, the next minute I can't breathe. I'm coughing and my ears feel like they need to pop. When I talk, it's hard to breathe and I feel like I'm saying words funny. So today I broke down and went to the doctor. I have three GNO parties this week and a table at an all day Holiday Shopping Extravaganza on Sunday, so I really want to feel like a normal person. While I was there, I figured I'd also ask the doctor about a random red patch that showed up next to my mouth last Monday that is chapped and peeling. It doesn't hurt, it's just ugly and I want it to go away.

So after I waited in the doctors office for well over forty minutes past my appointment time, the old geezer finally walks in and asks some random questions that he plugs into the computer. He then looks in my ears, nose, and mouth and checks my heart beat. That was it. Maybe he glanced at the red spot next to my mouth while I was saying "AAAAHHHHHHH", who knows?

What does he prescribe me? Halls menthol cough drops for my throat and nose and Vaseline for the spot on my face.

Are you kidding me?????

The "Circus" is in Town!

And I CANNOT wait!

I'm So Thankful!

Greg and I had a GREAT Thanksgiving break! We headed out on Tuesday afternoon and were fortunate to spend the evening with our friend Nell who lives in Canon City. Canon City is located on Hwy. 50, so we did not go out of our way at all! On Wednesday we woke bright and early and continued our journey up to Rangley. We arrived mid afternoon and enjoyed visiting with my brother, sister-in-law, and two nieces throughout the evening.

Thursday was Thanksgiving. And I couldn't wait to eat! Most of my sister-in-laws family lives in Rangely so there was a good size crowd and LOTS OF FOOD! No wonder I love Thanksgiving! Karen (my sister-in-law) makes the best home made dressing and rolls! Yum-o! Karen was also hosting a book party for me with The Body Shop at Home so I set up a display of products so everyone could sample and smell. It was a big hit! I even recruited one of Karen's nieces to become a consultant!


After we ate David (my brother) took Greg and I on a short sight-seeing drive. Afterwards we were able to settle down for the evening with more visiting and we even tried to watch a movie.

Then came Black Friday! We all got up bright and early so we could make the one and a half hour drive to Grand Junction to spend the day. The drive there was beautiful! There was just enough of a light snowfall the night before to make everything pretty!




We hit the mall first and it was crowded, but I think that's part of the fun of Black Friday! I didn't buy anything, instead Greg and I took turns shopping with each of our nieces so they could buy each others Christmas presents as well as birthday presents for their mom. Once everyone had shopped til they dropped, we cruised on over to Famous Dave's for some tasty bar-b-que! (This Southern gal never turns down a bar-b-que dinner!) It wasn't quite as tasty as my hubby's bar-b-que, but then again, maybe I'm just a little biased. ;) From their the gals went to some cute downtown boutiques and then we all met up again at a Christmas craft fair where Greg and I took this cute pic with our nieces Emily and Braylee. They are just too precious!



After the craft fair we headed on over to the movie theatre where we watched "Four Christmases". And let me tell ya, that movie did not disappoint! It was knee-slappin' hilarious! Greg and I actually want to go to the movies and watch it again. It's that funny. I guess it doesn't help that I love Reese Witherspoon and Greg loves Vince Vaughn. It was a two thumbs up for me!

The movies were followed by a quick trip to the pet store (just for fun!) and to a sporting goods store. Afterwards, everyone was tired so we headed back to Rangely and capped the night off with some yummy Thanksgiving leftovers!

We left around noon on Saturday afternoon and we decided to take a different route back to Lamar. We thought it would have been fun to take I-70 into Denver and spend the evening there. Oh if only I had a magic crystal ball.....

Shortly after we passed Glenwood Springs we got stopped in traffic for over two hours. It was horrible. And the reason was because the interstate has two separate roads, the road for the westbound traffic is slightly higher on the mountain than the eastbound road. Well, a semi went over the westbound highway and lets just say there was a major wreck.

From where we were parked we couldn't see any of this. But, the guy parked next to us happened to be a wrecker on his way to Denver so he was able to talk to the wreckers to find out what was going on. He did tell us that there was one fatality, which was really sad. I'm not sure what time the wreck happened but it must have happened shortly before we got there, because a guy from the Department of Transportation made everyone crunch in together so wreckers and ambulances could get through. We happened to stop before the accident to get lunch and fill up on diesel, so it really made me think, "that could have been us".

As if that wasn't enough, after we were finally able to get back on the road, about an hour later we were driving through the town of Avon. I was telling Greg a story about how much I hated that town because of an experience my sister and I had when I was driving through it several years ago. Not two minutes later, the next thing I know we were lost control of our truck and were sliding over both lanes of traffic. We ended up in the meridian and I just knew we were headed straight into the oncoming traffic on the other side. I freaked out! Luckily Greg manages to stay calm in the most stressful of situations so he clicked it into 4 wheel drive and asked (um, yelled) for me to tell him when the lane was clear. He knew if we stopped we'd be stuck. Somehow we got back on the road safe and sound. How we didn't hit anything is beyond me.

Unfortunately, things didn't get any better from there. I was pretty shook up about the whole near death experience and I was ready to just call it a night. Even though technically we had only driven three hours. But Greg insisted that the roads would be worse in the morning. I glanced at the map and noticed that we had to go over Vail Pass, so I called David to see how dangerous the pass was. (Greg warned me before I called not to tell him that we almost died, because according to him everything was peachy keen). So I kept the drama queen inside of me in check and my brother said the same thing that Greg did and that we should really make it to Denver. *Sigh* There's really nothing like the feeling one gets when one is driving down an icy road on a mountain in the dark. To say that it sucked would be putting it mildly. And of course my stomach was in knots from our near death experience, so I really had to pee. Like, bad. But, before we could exit at the next town, wouldn't you know, we get stuck in traffic. Again. This time we were at a stop for an hour and then it turned into a slow crawl. All I could see were red lights from the other cars brake lights. I have never considered peeing in a cup so bad in my life. How I held it is beyond me. Men are so lucky.

Needless to say, we never quite made it to Denver. Around 9:00 P.M. I knew we were approaching a hotel that we had stayed at back in April, so I convinced Greg to just stay there. We were tired and hungry. Not even the brand new Irish Pub with delicious potato and onion soup could revive us, so off to bed we went.

Sunday wasn't much better. The roads were extremely foggy until we got into Denver. (We were only fifteen miles away). The roads in Denver were wet but very easy to manage. That is, until we got past the airport. Then we were greeted yet again by icy roads. Luckily, we knew how what to do, so no damage was done! It did take us about an hour to drive maybe twenty miles. But after that, the roads were miraculously clear and dry! However, the wind speeds decided to reach 60 mph, so we had to laugh at all the tumbleweeds that crossed our path! I swear, I've never seen so many tumbleweeds in my life until I moved to Colorado! Who would have thought!

To sum it all up, normally if someone were to ask me what I'm thankful for around this time of year, I would say the normal things: good health, friends, family, blah, blah, blah. This year, however, I'm so thankful that we have not been in a car wreck!!!!

Never Say Never

As I mentioned earlier, Greg and I went to Pueblo this weekend! We have had this weekends trip planned for a little over a month. And the main reason we were going was because we heard that Gordon's Jewelry was having a huge platinum trunk show that day. My wedding ring is platinum and my wedding band was purchased separately and when we bought it, we bought it in white gold, not knowing that you have to get white gold jewelry re-dipped to keep it from looking yellow. To me it was very obvious that both rings were made out of different metal so we've been on the hunt for a new platinum band for awhile now. When we went to Pueblo about a month ago we learned about this show and so we made plans to attend. I also desperately needed to get my ring re-sized, so I have been "single" for this past month by not wearing either ring so my finger could go back to it's normal shape.

We arrived at Gordons just minutes before they opened their doors and I was soon so disappointed to discover that they didn't bring any platinum wedding bands. But, luckily a sales lady decided to show us some of their white gold wedding sets and said that we could order them in platinum. I was determined to walk away with a ring that day so I wasn't thrilled about the idea of ordering rings but I figured I'd humor the lady and have a look-see anyway.

Now, there have been several times when Greg has asked me if I would ever just want to upgrade my ring. And I always said, "Absolutely not!". To me, that ring symbolized our past and who we were at that time. That is.....until I saw this:











let's just say, "never say never". At first I considered just ordering the wrap in platinum to go with my ring. But the more we stared at the beautiful solitaire ring along with the wrap mine just seemed to fail in comparison. I had never seen or heard of black diamonds before and I love to wear things that are different so this was right up my alley. And the deciding factor was that they offered us a trade in on my platinum ring that was well over one and a half times what Greg originally paid for it! Of course before we made up our minds completely we walked away so we could think logically. I even called my sister since she used to work in a jewelry store and told her everything and she said it sounded like a great deal!

So now I have an absolutely gorgeous rock on my finger and I seriously feel like I'm newly engaged all over again. I can't stop staring at it! And remember that white gold wedding band I was wanting to replace? Well, they were only going to give us a $200 trade in for it, so we re-sized it so I could wear it on my right hand. So at least I still have some of our original wedding set!

And get this. I mentioned that I had been needing to get my ring resized for awhile now. Well, I had her tell me what size my old ring was and it was a 5 1/4. Guess what my new ring size is? 7! No wonder it was a struggle to get that ring on and off! And since my new rings fit so much better, I'm determined to listen to what my sister preaches to me, and I've been taking it off when I shower, sleep, clean, wash dishes, etc.

As if my Saturday couldn't have got any better, I even bought a new coat! I absolutely love coats! Seriously! But, if you've been a faithful blog reader, you know I do have issues when it comes to shopping (I know you're all rolling your eyes). But I literally haven't bought a new coat since my freshmen year of college. (OK, in retrospect, I did buy a denim jacket and a corduroy jacket, but they were both from Harolds while I worked there so I'm pretty sure I paid next to nothing for them!) And Greg absolutely hated my heavy winter coat because he thought it was ugly. So....this is my gorgeous new coat!

It's from the Jessica Simpson collection (I absolutely heart her and her clothing line!) And I love it because it has two different looks! If I don't have the top button buttoned, then the collar is more of your traditional collar. It is soooooo super adorable! But, I have to admit, (hopefully Greg doesn't read this) I am beginning to have a tad bit of buyers remorse over this. In the store it was a toss up between this and a cute white down coat. But, of course, I chose this one because it's dressier and more unique, which is more my style. But, after wearing it last night, I'm realizing that the bell sleeves are not all that warm. So, I'm trying to decide if I want to exchange it for the coat that is warmer and not so original.

Moving on to other subjects, I am super excited for what the rest of my week has in store! Greg is going to try super hard to get off work a little early tomorrow, which will mark the start of our Thanksgiving Vacation! We are going to Canon City to stay the night at Warren and Nell's house, and then on Wednesday morning we will be waking up and continuing our journey on up to Rangely to spend Thanksgiving with my brother and his family! I have not spent a holiday with them since they moved to Colorado way back in the early 90's. I honestly cannot wait and I'm sure I'll have a nice blog post all about that when I get back next week!!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I got a Face Lift

Well, not technically me, but my blog did! Thanks to my sister for clueing me into www.thecutestblogontheblock.com I have been wondering how some of my friends manage to have the cutest blog backgrounds! And now I know. So (of course) I decked mine out for Christmas! And for your listening pleasure I've added one of my all time favorite Christmas songs! Enjoy!!! P.S. We're going to Pueblo for the weekend! Hopefully I'll have some awesome purchases to blog about on Monday!

It's Begining to Look a lot like Christmas!

I'm sure some of you saw the title and though, "Uh, we haven't even celebrated Thanksgiving yet!" But, I was inspired by my friend Krissy's post! Recently a couple emails floated across my screen from different family members who mentioned that stores are already playing Christmas music and that neighbors are already decorating their homes for Christmas. They weren't too happy about it because they felt it was "too early". But, now I must confess, I have already decorated for Christmas! And I downloaded my fave Christmas song (a song I can't even spell that's performed by the Trans Siberian Orchestra) to use as my ringtone wayyyy back in October!

But before you start thinking I'm some Christmas fanatic, let me give you a glimpse of what my past two Christmases have been like:

2006-We were in the process (as usual) of remodeling our house. When we moved in in January we ripped ALL the flooring out of the house. We carpeted the back part of the house but knew we wanted wood floors in our living/dining/kitchen. I don't know if any of you have bought wood flooring recently, but it's not exactly the cheapest stuff in the world to purchase. Needless to say we walked around on the concrete slab for well over a year. And there was no way I was getting my tree out and my pretty tree skirt to leave on the yucky concrete floor. Not to mention all the dust we were constantly creating from sanding down our kitchen cabinet doors and the fact that Greg was building cabinets for our master bathroom and walk in closet.

2007-We had just sold our house the month before and were living full time in our *tiny* trailer. There was absolutely no room for any type of Christmas decor. I did manage to hang a Christmas swag type thingie on our front door, but after Greg discovered it was scratching the fiber glass it was quickly trashed.

Fast-forward to the present: 2008-Two weeks ago Greg was with me at Wal-Mart (this normally wouldn't happen, but my truck was in the shop, remember?) and HE said, "Should we maybe look at Christmas decorations to hang up in the trailer". My first thought was, "Who just possessed my husband?" which was quickly followed by, "Well, I better strike while the irons hot!" So our cute lil trailer now has festive garland hung in various places with miniature stockings, mini red bulbs, and mini gold icicles! I am containing my excitement just a lil by not changing my ringtone on my phone until Thanksgiving if that makes any of you feel better!

I'm mobile once again!

We finally got our truck back late Tuesday evening! Yay! Literally, words cannot express how annoying it is to have to be stuck at home or rely on others to tote me around. And as far as what was wrong with the truck, well, Greg is at work so he's not here to tell me. But I know one thing was the fuel pump and then there was something else. Who knows! The best part was, our truck was still under factory warranty! Woo-hoo! So we had to pay $100 and our truck was completely fixed! Which included an oil change! An oil change on our truck normally costs $75 anyway, so I was pretty happy about this. And thankfully this didn't happen while we were towing our house on wheels! That would not have been a fun day!

So, now I get to celebrate by going to Wal-Mart and the Post Office all by myself!

A Year Ago.......

This is a pretty significant day for me. Why? Because a year ago my husband and I were moving out of our house and going to the title company to sign the papers that officially sealed the deal. We were fortunate enough to pre-sign before the buyer signed since we were going to be out of state and that was the only weekend my husband could get off work to help me move the big stuff. Signing the paper work and receiving our proceeds check was exciting since we had completely remodeled the place ourselves, but it was also a little bittersweet for obvious reasons.

I remember vividly going to the house for the very last time on Sunday to do a last minute clean and to grab the few items we literally couldn't fit in our truck when we were there moving the day before. Unfortunately, Greg didn't have it planned out the way I did. He was excited to sell our house and move on to what the future held in store for us. I have a tendency to resist change, and I wanted the house to be perfect for the new owner. I had a long list of things I wanted to dust, wipe down, vacuum, etc. Not that the house was dirty. I had it looking "show-room ready" while it was on the market and since my husband was working out of state, it was very easy to keep the place extremely clean and tidy! But, really, the main reason I wanted to clean was because I wanted to stay in the house for as long as possible. It really was my dream house and I was a little apprehensive about living in a travel trailer for a few years. (Wouldn't you?) But my husband had other plans. He had friends he wanted to visit since he was in town and he said, "You know people always clean before they move into a house anyway. You're wasting your time." Which is true, I know. But still!

So I begrudgingly left the keys on the counter along with the folder I had filled with useful information for the home's new owner (I'm the best seller in the world, I know! lol! JK! That's the old Realtor coming out in me!) I settled into our truck and immediately burst into tears. Of course, since we've sold our fair share of homes in the past couple of years Greg knew this was coming. And as usual, he laughed at me (his way of making me feel better). He asked why I was crying and I told him it was because we were officially homeless. He, being the typical guy that he is, hadn't looked at it like that.

Now, fast forward to today, it has been one year of being "homeless". I really can't believe it has gone by so fast! The one exciting thing to think about since pretty much 99% of what we own is now in storage is the fact that if we happened to end up in a town that we absolutely loved, we could buy a house and just settle down there. Of course, that's fine to talk about. But, my husband has a tendency to get stuck in towns for long periods of time, so we haven't been able to travel and see as many places as we would like. On the flip side, we do still talk about moving back to Oklahoma. And the tricky thing is, is that whenever we talk about it, I instantly picture our former house. I still think of it as "home". How sad is that? And what's funny, is it's the little things about the place that I miss. Like opening up virtually every single wooden blind in the house every morning because I just love natural light so much. And the feel of the soft cut Berber carpet underneath my bare feet. I even miss vacuuming our swimming pool and the cute little baby frogs that were sure to greet me every morning when I checked the skimmer baskets. I miss having the option to take a bath. I miss my built in make-up vanity that my husband designed for me in our master bathroom. I miss having a dishwasher. I miss the security of having an alarm system. I even miss sweeping off the front porch and decorating it for holidays! Do you really want me to continue?

We have drove past our old home just once since we sold it. And it was when we were in Oklahoma back in March. (Or maybe it was when we were there in December...who knows!) And at that time it really helped me. The OKC area had been hit hard by an ice storm. So when we drove past our old property, there were literally tree limbs everywhere in the front and back yard. One of which that landed on the swimming pool cover and tore it. Shingles were missing from the roof and one part of the chain link fence had fallen down. Honestly, seeing it look like that made me feel a little bit better. Is that terrible? I have since learned from my former next door neighbor that the new owner has put a 12 foot privacy fence all the way around the back yard area. So I know if I drive past it again it really won't look like the home I remember so vividly.

Sheesh, I'll try to end this on a positive note. If you own a home, cherish it! I have seen my fair share of properties that people do not take care of. And it's really a sad thing. Pride of ownership is evident when one walks into someones home. And if you are reading this and do not own....well, what's stopping you?! This is a buyers market so please take advantage of this great opportunity that can leave you with one of the best feelings there is, which is saying that you own a piece of the All-American Dream.

Today's The Day!

It's my husband's birthday! (I bet you thought I was going to say it's Election Day). And what does he get for his special day? Truck problems! Yesterday I went to a girls house who is going to host a Girls Nite Out party for me this Saturday. I had to drop off a hostess brochure, and when I left, I started the truck. It started A-OK, but when I pushed the gas pedal (diesel pedal?) it barely rolled forward. I thought that maybe I didn't have it in gear, so I put it in park, then put it back in drive and had the same result. However, this time I smelt smoke, and when I looked in the rear view mirror, I saw all kinds of smoke coming out of the exhaust. Yikes! A guy had happened to be standing in his front yard and saw the whole thing happen. He was kind enough to come over and look under my hood, even though we both had no clue what to look for. He even had the nerve to ask if I accidentally put gas in it instead of diesel! Hello? I'm not an idiot....

Anyway, I eventually gave up and called a friend who luckily I knew was in town. She happened to be a couple blocks away and was able to pick me up. The downside was that the truck was left in a not too great neighborhood on the wrong side of the tracks, if ya know what I mean! Once I finally got ahold of Greg on the phone, I think he was more worried about where the truck was left parked, rather than the actual problem at hand. He was fortunate enough to get off work early and he was pretty relieved to see that the truck still had wheels, no broken windows, and our fifth wheel hitch perfectly intact! However, the truck still behaved the same way. We had come prepared and had a chain so he could tow me to the Ford Dealership. Now that is something I hope I never have to do again. Talk about being stressed out behind the wheel. Thank God for speakerphone! If it wasn't for that I would have probably done some damage to both our truck and Greg's company truck.

It's now 11:30 my time, and we still haven't got a call from the Ford Dealership as to a diagnosis of the problem. We're praying it's not a head gasket. In the meantime, I'm stranded. Which means no yoga for me today. :( So, the best Birthday present my hubby can receive is a relatively small bill from the Ford Dealership!

Finally!

Yesterday I finally mailed off my absentee ballot. And at this point, even though I casted my own vote, I really don't care who wins. Sounds horrible, but for me, reading through all the websites was a little overwhelming. Both candidates had one major thing each that I really didn't like. So then it was just up to me deciding which of the "little things" I liked better. You have no idea how relieved I was to hand that envelope over to the post master. The next time I vote I really don't think it will be so bad. But trying to figure out if I was Republican or Democrat and then researching the candidates started to feel like home work to me.

To top it off I had checked a memoir book about Obama out from the library. And I just couldn't get into it. But I made myself read it. Why? I don't know. I even went into the library once to renew it, only for them to tell me that it was already over-due and that someone else had it on hold when I returned it. So, what was my solution? To keep it selfishly until I finished it. Yesterday I was also able to return that. And, by some small miracle, I didn't owe the approximate $5 in late fees I had mentally calculated. I think the librarian must have accidentally deleted them. That did put an extra bounce in my step!

So now life can go back to reading my much loved Chick-Lit books, surfing the net, and promoting my new TBSAH business!
*No, I didn't really mean what I said about not caring who wins the election.

Business Blog!

As I mentioned before, I created a blog that is all about The Body Shop at Home. You can find it at www.isellthebodyshopathome.blogspot.com I figured this could be a fun way for people to read about The Body Shop products and to get a first hand look at what it would be like to be a consultant. So, if you have a friend who wants some information, feel free to send them that way!!

Tag!

I've been tagged by amazing jewelry designer Brandi of Catie's Blue

How does this cyber-version game of tag work?

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by including links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.

Here goes!

1. With the exception of my signature, I have horrible cursive handwritting. It looks like a seven year old's attempts at writing cursive.

2. I have a new found obsession with singer Jason Mraz.

3. I wore green contacts in college (when I could afford them).

4. My high school graduating class consisted of a whopping eleven people, including myself!

5. I cannot, for the life of me, whistle. When I try, it sounds like a fog horn.

6. Even though it is no longer on TV, my all time favorite TV show is Felicity. I have the whole DVD collection. And I'm talking about the college girl, not the "All American" girl.

7. I could easily spend a whole day in Barnes & Noble. Books + Starbucks = Perfect Day!

And I am tagging:

Krissy, one of my fellow retail merchandising college friends!
Paul, my cousin in TX (no offense to my other cousins, I bet you'll eventually get tagged as well!)
Rebecca, one of my fellow theatre college friends turned Nashville recording artist!
Brad, one of the other eleven members of my high school graduating class
Randy, another retail merchandising college friend!
Jessica, my amazing "kind of" step sister in law photographer friend!

The Body Shop at Home

So....I'm super excited! I have recently signed up to be a The Body Shop at Home consultant. That's right, The Body Shop has a direct sales division. It's a pretty new division of the store, so I'm super excited about this. Not to mention I absolutely love The Body Shop products. If you are not familiar with The Body Shop, they are basically like Bath & Body Works, but the difference is that they are 100% organic, use recycled goods to package their products, and use community trade for many of their natural ingredients. I have a website so if you would like to place orders, the link is www.thebodyshopathome.com/web/fconner (A big thanks to Krissy for teaching me how to make a link!) Christmas is right around the corner, so hopefully this will make shopping a little easier! Also, I will host Girls Nite Out spa parties where gals (and guys) can pamper their selves with The Body Shop's amazing products. And guys, I'm sure you have at least one special gal in your life that you occasionally need to buy a present for! :) I'm trying to keep this short and sweet, so if you have any questions, feel free to let me know! I've also created a blog just for my new business, which I'll be revealing at a later time! That way I won't bore all my faithful readers with info on The Body Shop if they don't want to read it! Thanks for your support!!!

****OK, so I just posted this, and when I clicked on my website link, it said the blog wasn't found. So, if anyone can tell me what to do to fix this, that would be great!!! I still appreciate the initial info Krissy!*****

And the winner is......AT&T

My plan to cheat the system didn't work. We received our official letter from AT&T last week stating that they are cancelling our service since we've been roaming for three months. According to the letter we can still keep our numbers if we change networks by a certain date. Hopefully that will be the case. Another couple that recently got dropped by AT&T since they have been here in Lamar was not able to keep their numbers. They went with a smaller wireless network so I'm hoping that is why. Only time will tell. Until then I get the joyous activity of shopping wireless networks. And since we're here in Lovely Lamar, the only ones here are Verizon and Viero (the smaller network I was referring too). More than likely we will be going with Verizon. The small glimmer of hope is that they are about to merge with Alltel, who have that pick your circle plan, where we can call a select amount of people from different networks. That would be fine with me. The downfall is that neither network has rollover minutes. Scary!!! The upside is: we're going to be getting new phones!!!! I'm still thinking BlackBerry, but time will tell.

In the meantime, I'm going to be chatting away with my accumulated seven thousand plus roll over minutes since AT&T is dropping us anyway.

Before and After

Ok, I promised last week that I would post before and after pics of my hair. And I really think that the pics don't do justice. But, I am a woman of my word!

Before:


After:
You can mainly see the red, but in person it is a lot darker! Which I love. I'm not so crazy about the red. It's not as natural looking as I wanted, so I've got that punk rocker look that I was not wanting to have. When it's down and curly it's not as noticeable as when it's up in ponytail or when it's straight.

Here's a curly side shot that Greg took while we were in Canon City:

A Weekend in Colorado

Greg and I had the perfect Colorado weekend! We went to Pueblo on Friday night. We ate at Red Lobster (yum!) and then took in the movie "Eagle Eye", which quite frankly, I wasn't all that impressed with. But, it was fun to have a date night! Then on Saturday we ventured West to stay with our friends Nell and Warren in Canon City. Warren works with Greg, so we haven't known them for very long, but they are such a neat couple to spend time with. And I cannot tell you how excited I was to pull up to such a cute "gingerbread" Victorian home!


Shortly after we arrived we went for a ride to check out the land that they own on top of a mountain! Have I ever mentioned that I'm not always the best passenger to have in a vehicle? My hubby likes to check things out, even when we're driving on the edge of a mountain that I think reaches 9,000+ feet! So I was a very happy camper when we arrived at Warren and Nell's land. And it was so gorgeous!!!! They own around 35 acres (mol) and it has beautiful aspen trees on it. We had a nice picnic lunch and then did some brief hiking and picture taking on their land.

Even Shady had a blast!

Those gorgeous colors on the mountain are actually aspen leaves! My new official favorite tree!

From there we took a drive on what I would call a "country road" to check out the scenery!


We saw several deer, including this smart duo that took shelter in a small "cave" during a light rain shower.

Remember that rain shower I mentioned? Guess what followed shortly after?

If I had a dollar for every rainbow I've seen since we've been in Colorado I would be a rich woman! They are one thing I never grow tired of seeing! Proof that there is a God!

Unfortunately, there was one small detour that I wish we hadn't decided to take. If someone enters Canon City from the West, there is a road called "Skyline Drive" that one can take into town instead of the interstate. Warren knew how nervous I was getting driving on the side of the mountain and he assured me that it wasn't that big of a deal. Yeah. Right. It's a one way road (if it can even be called that) and we did start off with a nice big chunk of mountain on our left hand side, with the drop off on our right. But, as we kept climbing, eventually, there is a drop off on both sides. Did I mention that my sweet, precious hubby likes to look around when he's driving? And we have a HUGE truck. It's really a beast. To put it mildly, apparently I have a fear of heights. Especially on a road that is not quite wider than the four wheels of our truck, there is a drop off on both sides, and NO GUARD RAILS! Whew! My hands are sweating and my heart is racing as I'm typing this!!! Even Warren commented that it didn't seem that dangerous when he rides his bike on it. Obviously we didn't die, but I am considering this pretty darn close to a near-death experience!

We topped off our great day (minus the near death experience) with dinner at an Irish pub, which was delicious!!!! Afterwards we drove around Canon City and checked out some of the older historic homes! Unfortunately it was too dark for pictures. On Sunday we went to a cute mom and pop cafe and I had another wonderful meal! This time a vegetarian version of an eggs benedict. Yummy! Before we left town, we drove past another old home (we all know I'm obsessed with them!). This one even has a website! I haven't had a chance to visit yet, but the address is www.robisonmansion.com (If anyone knows how I can make these have actual links please feel free to clue me in as to how to do it!)


After that we headed back to Lamar! I wonder what we'll do this weekend.......

It's Low Light Thursday!

I am so excited that today has finally arrived. Why? Because I'm getting low lights in my hair!!! I have never had my hair high lighted or low lighted, so this is a really big step for me. Mainly I've never done this because I never wanted to keep up with the maintenance. I mean, come on. Roots that are a different color from the rest of ones hair is not the most attractive thing in the world. But lately here I've been so disgusted by my mousy brown hair. Maybe that's because this trailer literally has six mirrors in a space that I'm sure is smaller than 300 square feet. Anyway. When I got my hair trimmed a few weeks ago I asked the stylist about high lights, but told her I wanted to go darker, rather than lighter. She patiently explained to me that what I really wanted then was low lights. She recommended a dark mahogany and a red violet. I told her I didn't want to look punk rock-ish, and she assured me that it's just a subtle red.

I didn't schedule an appointment that day. It was something I definitely wanted to think about. I talked to Greg about it and he said to do whatever I wanted. So I finally gave in, called, and scheduled my appointment. I was still a little hesitant about it, but now that I've waited for two weeks and my appointment is today, I am so super excited! And the bonus is that she is just going to low light the lower portion of my hair so that if I decide I don't like it, the roots won't be that obvious. Yay!! I'm really hoping it turns out good and that I don't regret this! OH! I almost forgot! I never told Greg that I made a decision, so he has no idea that I'm doing this! I'm hoping this will be a good surprise!

And for more good news: one of my favorite stores here is having a HUGE sale today!!!! Chunky jewelry here I come! I can't wait! And then, my nia class is tonight. I don't see how this day can get any better! Oh wait! It kind of does! Because Greg and I have plans for the weekend! We're going to Pueblo tomorrow night (can you say, Red Lobster?) and then on Saturday we're cruisin' on over to Canon City to stay the night with an awesome couple that we met! We're going to be in the mountains, and apparently the asps are changing colors, so it's supposed to be B-U-T-FUL!!! Ciao!!!

Oklahoma 911 Call

This makes me laugh everytime!

I'm hot.....like a jalapeno!

This weekend we had another couple over for dinner, and we decided to make some jalapeno poppers! I had never made them before, but we had some at a cook out we went to this summer, so I figured they couldn't be that hard to make. We stopped at the Farmers Market and I picked out twenty fresh jalapenos. I was so excited to make my yummy little appetizers!

After I got home, I washed all of them before I started to cut them open and de-seed them. My friend Christina hadn't arrived yet, so I was cutting them up all by myself. At one point, I happened to remember that I had read somewhere that when one is cutting up peppers, one should wear rubber gloves. I rolled my eyes, thinking, "Wow, that person must have been a complete wimp! These don't burn my fingers at all!".

As I was cutting the jalapenos open, my friend Chrisitina arrived, and she began to stuff the peppers with cheddar cheese while I finished my de-seeding process. Once they were all stuffed with cheese and wrapped with bacon, I handed them over to Greg to put on the grill. After a few minutes, Greg, Corey, and Christina all came back inside. Apparently they had tasted one of them after it had been on the grill for a few minutes. And apparently they were pretty hot. Even Greg had tears in his eyes! They decided to cook them a little while longer, and I proceeded to get everything else ready.

Eventually, everything was prepared, so we all sat down to eat. And all three of them stared at me when I took my first bite of the jalapeno popper. "This isn't that hot." I said after my first bite. Everyone shrugged their shoulders and decided it was fine to dig in. Well, apparently I had a somewhat mild pepper. My next pepper, not so mild. I look around the table, and Greg, Christina, and myself are all red faced and teary eyed. I couldn't even eat the rest of my second jalapeno popper. Then I got the bright idea that maybe the cheese by itself would not be so hot. Wrong! My eyes teared up, yet again. To make matters worse, Christina didn't believe me when I said the cheese was spicy, so she took two big bites of just the cheese from one of her peppers. Let's just say I think next time she'll learn from my mistakes! By this time, everyone basically has sweat rolling down their faces. Except Corey....he's pretty much the man! (I sent the remaining sixteen or so poppers home with him.)

It gets better. Several hours later, I notice that my fingers are really starting to burn. Basically, they felt like they were on fire and I literally expected to look down at them and see them throbbing. I had no idea what to do, so I soaked them in a bowl of cold water and dawn dishwashing soap. That helped for a little bit. After that I decided to look online for some home remedies. The first thing I did was poured rubbing alcohol all over my hands. That helped. For about five minutes. After that, the burning intensified! My next plan was to soak them in vinegar. Again, it didn't help and to top it off, the trailer then smelt like rotten eggs. So then I decided to take a shower. Surely the hot water will help wash off the pepper oil on my hands. WRONG!!! Oh. My. God. Let's just say don't mix hot water with a burn. And to make matters worse my whole face began to burn while I was in the shower. I guess I touched my face on accident.

After the whole shower fiasco, my fingers were still throbbing like you wouldn't believe. The main piece of advice that I had read online was to wash my hands with baking soda and water. Of course, I had no baking soda. But, I was desperate! I drove to the only store still open; Wal-Mart! After I got back home, I proceeded to wash my hands multiple times with it. I even made a paste and left it on my hands for several minutes at a time. It did seem to help a little. After that, I just gave up. I went to bed with throbbing, burning hands. Yesterday, the pain was still there. It wasn't as bad, it came and went. Thankfully, today I haven't had any issues!

Let's just say that the next time I decide to cut any type of hot pepper, I'll wear rubber gloves!

Breast Feeding Reminder Bracelet

There you have it! I finally received my "O" bead in the mail from Alouette! Which meant that yesterday I was able to make my breast feeding reminder bracelet that I mentioned in an earlier post. I think it's super cute and can't wait to sell it to a nursing mother! Check out my shop if you or someone you know would like to order it: www.blingonastring.etsy.com

yoga time!

I was so ready for today to arrive! Why? Because my yoga class started today! I just got back about an hour ago and I already feel so relaxed. If you are reading this and have never practiced yoga, run, don't walk, to the nearest studio and give it a try. I did yoga one night a week the first few years of college, and then randomly ever since. However, today I purchased a six week session, so I'm super pumped! And the bonus is that the studio is this really old ranch house that has recently been revamped with cool paintings and photographs. I love the mixture of a rustic old house with totally modern eclectic art.

Because I knew that this was the kick off week for yoga I started on a weekly work out plan. Now, why I'm getting serious about shedding some unwanted pounds now that summer is over, is beyond me! But oh well! So, here's what I'm doing:
Monday: Cardio and light weights at the gym - 1 hour
Tuesday: Yoga - 1 hour
Nia - 1 hour
Wednesday: Cardio and light weights at the gym - 1 hour
Thursday: Nia - 1 hour
Friday: Cardio and light weights at the gym - 1 hour

It's really nothing compared to my cousin Heidi's triathlon training schedule, but I'm hoping it will work for me. And by posting it for the world to see, I'm hoping I'll stick with it!!! Hopefully with this new plan I can loose ten pounds this month. Is that a realistic goal? I have no idea, but I'm running with it.

On a side note: I mailed off my voter registration today! Yay! Although now I'm slightly panicked. It will take approximately 20 days to get my voter registration card in. Then, once I have that, I have to mail in a request for an absentee voter ballot. I really hope that I get everything in time so that all this research won't be done in vain. In the meantime, it's time to begin researching the candidates!

Snail Mail!

I absolutely love snail mail! Especially when it's a package or letter or card that I'm not expecting. Yesterday I walked to the office to see if my mom had mailed me my mail from home. And I did have mail, just not from my mom. It was a package from my Aunt in California. She had already sent me an anniversary card, as well as a birthday card the month before, so I was a little confused as to what it was. It was all I could do to not run back to our trailer from the office out of sheer anticipation to see what was in the bulky envelope. As soon as I opened it I was so surprised. She had sent me a brand new Danielle Steel hardback. And on it she taped a note saying that she too loves Danielle Steel. I was so shocked that she took time out of her busy schedule to buy me a book just because we both have a joint interest in the author. I also never knew that she liked to read so it's always neat when you find out a relative has a common interest with you. It kind of reminded me of those ancestor.com commercials that say, "find out who you get your love of dancing from".

So thanks, Aunt Jo! Not only for the snail mail, but also for a book I cannot wait to loose myself in!

100 Hearts!

YAY!!!! I now officially have 100 hearts on etsy! Things are looking up! OK, I'll explain: when people are browsing through the shops at www.etsy.com if they come across one that they want to add to their favorite shops, they give that shop a heart. And now that I've been online for seven months I have finally reached 100! Granted, I'm sure half of those hearts are from people whose stores I hearted, but who cares! Hopefully my hearts will keep growing! Hmmm....maybe the one hundredth heart was from someone who checked out my book thongs that I added yesterday!! Yup, I caved in and bought some beads with larger holes so I could make the book thongs I mentioned in a previous blog. Go check 'em out! www.blingonastring.etsy.com

I'm in a Treasury!

Yay! I'm in a treasury on etsy thanks to my great friend Tina (www.lanaephotography.etsy.com). I know a lot of you probably aren't familiar with www.etsy.com but that is the website that I sell my jewelry through. And treasuries are just the coolest things. Supposively there can only be around 330 treasuries at a time, so of course I've never been able to make one of my own. But apparantly there was a glitch in the system yesterday and there were over 700 treasuries created. Treasuries are items that someone picks and then, generally, they get lots of views! Which means it can draw more people to my website!!! Yay! As you can tell I'm pretty stoked! OH, and I'm the Misty necklace on the bottom right!

Weekend in Pueblo!

Greg and I are celebrating our 4 year anniversary tomorrow! To celebrate, we went to Pueblo for the weekend. We have gone to Colorado Springs several different times, and decided to stay in Pueblo for a change. And I am so glad that we did!

First off, we arrived there around noon so we ate lunch at Ruby Tuesday. Then we checked into our hotel. After which I was finally able to convince Greg that we needed to go to the Rosemount Museum. The museum is actually a 24,000 square foot mansion built in the 1890's. The tour was absolutely fantastic! Mainly because I have an obsession with older homes. The home is three stories tall and has ten Tiffany chandeliers which I thought was pretty cool.

After we left the museum we drove around downtown and discovered that Pueblo has a cool riverwalk complete with cute little boutiques and cafe's. I was dying to just walk around and scope things out, but that is just not my hubby's cup of tea. Instead we went to the movie theatre to see if any movies were about to play. The only one that was about to start was Death Race so that's what we watched. (Of course, the theatre didn't hold a candle to the Warren Theatre!) From there we went back to the hotel to change clothes before going to Red Lobster for dinner. The dinner was quite interesting. Greg is slowly beginning to acquire a taste for seafood, so it really surprised me when he said he wanted a couple crab legs. I love crab legs, so I ordered those and Greg went even further out on a limb and ordered a meal that had lobster tail, shrimp scampi, and grilled shrimp. I had never had lobster before, so it was pretty ironic that I didn't like it, and Greg really did.

We capped the night off by going to the hot tub at the hotel. We met another couple in the hotel and one thing led to another and somehow we found out that the guy surfed. Of course one of Greg's life long goals is to learn to surf. And, believe it or not, the guy (Sam) had his surf board with him at the hotel. He decided it was the perfect chance for Greg to have his first lesson. In the hotel pool. I of course was wondering how one could have a surfing lesson in a pool and when I voiced that concern Sam said that learning how to actually sit on the board was the first thing someone would have to learn. He also said it was pretty hard. Well, I thought that this sounded like it would be a Kodak Moment so I rushed off to our hotel room to grab my camera. By the time I got back (it couldn't have taken more than seven minutes), Greg was sitting on the surf board in the pool as if he was totally used to it. He said that he got on first try. I told him to proove it and he did. I completely missed out on being able to take loads of what I assumed would be hillarious pictures of Greg attempting to get on a surf board in a hotel pool. I was really proud of him for doing so well! Hopefully one day he will be able to put that first surfing lesson to actual use!

And that about sums up our early anniversary celebration! Below is a picture of the Rosemount Museum and one from our wedding day! Cheers!

ogspot.com/_ku-9cj5frug/

Beading Blunders

I have to vent. I had anticipated today to be an artsy beading day. And I really started to get a lot accomplished. Started is the key word here. Where do I begin...well, as I mentioned I am thinking of entering a craft fair next month. I even called and got all the details for it today which is a big check mark off of my list. I haven't confirmed that I am going yet and I really feel that I need to have more pieces to sell before I go. Luckily while I was in Oklahoma I got to visit my favorite bead store, Alouette. Apparently I wasn't the normal observant shopper that I usually am as you'll see below.

I laid all my beading supplies out on the table and decided the first thing I would make is a breast feeding reminder bracelet. The basic concept of the bracelet involves numbers from 1 through 12 and a charm that someone can move around to the next time they are supposed to breast feed. I have only made one and it was for my sister. Since it turned out so good I thought why not make one to sell. Who knows, it could be my signature piece. The thing is, the numeric beads I use are pretty expensive and I can only find them at Alouette. So I was pretty excited to be able to finally have all the materials I needed to make this particular bracelet. That is, until I started laying out my number beads, only to discover that yours truly apparently didn't buy a "0" bead for my number 10. Great. Now I'll have to call Alouette and have them mail me one measly bead. Wonderful. No biggie, I'll just move on to my next piece.

I had also bought some really cool African bone beads that looked like zebra at Alouette. They are square and I had to dig around to find two that were about the same size. I bought them with plans of making a pair of earrings. Basically I would have the bone hanging from the bottom with two strands of black seed beads looping up and attaching to the actual earring. In my mind they were pretty cool and would look so cute on a gal all dressed up for a night out on the town. That is, until I realized that only one of the bone beads had two holes drilled through and the other one only had one hole drilled through. OK. Deep breath. This is not a disaster. I decided I would just have it dangling from one strand rather than two. Which I did. Only it's not as dramatic as it would have been with two strands. Fine. I didn't make the matching earring. I'm hoping I will suddenly have a grand idea as to how to drill a hole through about an inch of bone. And by me I mean my husband. If we have to break out a power tool for this little bead, then so be it!

Moving on to my third and final project. My great idea for overcoming the "lack of inventory" problem for the craft show was that I would make book thongs!!! My mom had made some last year for her church bazaar and I literally use mine everyday. If you don't know what a book thong is, it's a book mark that is made out of a piece of cord with beads tied to each end that dangle out of both ends of the book when it's being used. Brilliant! I can sell them pretty cheap on my website, have more inventory for the craft fair, and use up random beads. I bought several packages of the cord in various colors at Wal-Mart. And of course, while I was at Alouette, I bought several more tubes of seed beads in colors that would match the cord. And although the previous two projects failed, this was obviously a no brainer, right? Nope. Since I had never actually opened the cord out of their packages, I didn't realize how big the cord actually was. And I thought seed beads would easily string onto it? Yeah right. And out of all the beads I have (which isn't a ton, but I am getting quite the collection) only two will actually string onto the cord.

Somehow I managed to not chunk my box of beads across the room. So much for that whole "more inventory" plan for this craft fair. But I'm trying to be realistic about the whole situation. Surely I can find something else to use other than braiding cord for the book thongs. I am confident that my husband will know how to drill a hole into a piece of bone. And I'm positive that once I receive my 0 bead from Alouette I'll have my bracelet made way before the craft fair. And I realize that my bad Alouette shopping experience is really all of Norman's fault. I should have known better than to try to go to the bead store on Campus Corner on the day of the first OU football game.

And on another bright side, I have also proven that a theory of mine is actually wrong. I found a $20 bill in my jacket pocket this morning. I always took that as an omen that it's going to be a good day. Guess not!

The Warren Theatre

Greg and I were fortunate enough to be able to go to Oklahoma for a few days during the holiday weekend. And the best highlight of the trip for me was the chance to visit the new Warren Theatre in Moore. To sum it up, Greg and I were actually living in Moore when the city announced they were going to be building what was to be "Oklahoma's Largest Theatre". At the time I was still working for Pinnacle as a new home consultant, and part of my sales pitch when it came to the location of the communities in S. OKC was that they were going to be so close to this new theatre. Then, for the next three years, I watched as this grand structure was being built. Of course during those three years we moved to Harrah, and from there we began our stint "on the road". Last March Greg and I were in Oklahoma for almost a month while we waited for his next job assignment. And of course, all I heard about was the grand opening of the Warren Theatre that was going to take place the first week of April. As luck would have it, we left for Colorado the week before the theatre opened its doors to the public.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Warren Theatre, let me give you some background information. It is the largest theatre in Oklahoma. It costs millions of dollars to build. (I read the actual amount in an article, but I can't remember if it was three million or thirty million.) The floors are made of marble and the counter tops are made of granite. They use REAL BUTTER on the popcorn! Two of the theatres have balconies and if you are lucky enough to snag tickets to the balcony, you have waiters that will come to your chair (which is made out of the backseat of a Ford Mustang and they actually heat) and serve alcoholic beverages from the full service bar, or bring food to you. If you aren't lucky enough to score balcony seats, people twenty-one and up can still go up to the lounge and order adult beverages and food. The other theatres have pretty cozy seats as well. They are made of temperpedic foam and after awhile you just sink into them. Every theatre has a curtain that raises before the trailers. And each theatre has a glow in the dark clock so you don't have to resort to looking at a cell phone if you need to know what time it is. There is an open waiting room in front of the restrooms with a cozy fire place. Basically, to sum it all up, it's just pretty dang cool!

Greg and I spent four days in Oklahoma and went to the Warren Theatre twice. And it was well worth the wait!!! The popcorn with the real butter was as wonderful as I anticipated! The seats were so comfy I didn't mind sitting still for a couple of hours! I honestly cannot wait to go back. If anyone reading has not gone to the Warren Theatre, I would highly recommend you to not waste another minute and GO!

www.warrentheatres.com

Political Questions

Please don't yell at me, but I'm not registered to vote. I know. Horrible, right? But honestly, I've never really been into politics and I figured I'd just ask my friends who they are voting for and I'd vote for the same person. I don't exactly think that's the smartest thing to do, so I just stayed out of the picture. But now that I'm getting older, I realize that I really should. I mean, I may give birth to the future president of the United States, and how would that look if his own mother wasn't registered to vote? But my problem is that I was never interested in government or U.S. history when I went to school. So I'm completely lost. Here are my reasons why, and hopefully a friend or someone can help me out!

How do I know if I'm democrat or republican? And I do know that regardless which party I say that I'm in, I can always vote for someone that is from another party in a presidential election. I went online to see if I could take a quiz that would help me out. I thought this would be a bright idea because I distinctly remember taking a quiz just like that in the sixth grade. However, the problems was that the questions were about things that I had no idea what they meant. I raised my hand to ask my teacher, and she said it really didn't matter and to just answer yes or no to the questions because it was really just for fun. (That's the Oklahoma City Public School System for ya!) Well, now when I try to find a test, all the websites say it really doesn't matter since you can vote for either candidate regardless of which party you belong to. Well, it may not matter to them, but it does matter to me. I mean, aren't there seperate elections for democratic and republican candidates before they even decide who the presidential candidates are? Or am I even more confused than I thought I was? So basically if I can just learn some of the fundamental beliefs of each party that would be great. And please, no biased or mean answers, I just want facts!!!

Another question I have is: am I even to late to register to vote in this years presidential election? (I guess that really should have been my first question!)

If not, how do I do it? And do I have to register in the state I "live" in. This one is tricky since my drivers license is OK but I'm currently "living" in CO. I know I can do absentee voting, but it's the registration that confuses me.

Now, let's say that I do get registered and am able to vote in this election. Is there a website so I can read up on what each candidate believes in? I cannot sit through one of those shows they do on TV so please don't say that. I read stuff from different friends on myspace saying this candidate is going to do this and this one is going to do something else. I don't know whether to believe everything my friends write because again I think it's coming from a biased point of view......

I think that about covers my political questions. Like I said, I know, it's horrible that I'm not taking advantage of my right to vote. Let's now dwell on that....and please, just give me some factual answers!!!! Thanks!

Yours Truly,
Confused

For a good cause

Hey everyone! One of my dear friends (www.crazypaper.etsy.com) is holding an online auction to raise money for a former teacher of hers that has cancer. Here's the link: http://stores.ebay.com/helpsolveforx All money will be sent towards medical bills so any help would be appreciated. I donated two pairs of earrings, so it's fine if you want to be a little bit biased and bid on those ;) Several other artists from etsy donated items from their shops so there are a lot of homemade items listed on the auction. Thanks and happy bidding!

On another note I am thinking of setting up camp at a craft fair in October. It's a very small town so it will not be very fancy but it will at least get my feet wet. Which of course means that I'm inspired to create all over again, but there is a lack of bead stores here. By lack I mean none. *sigh* So we'll see if I actually go through with this or not. If anyone has ever sold at a craft fair I am open to any and all suggestions!

I hate the car wash!

I don't know why, but ever since we've lived in Lamar I seem to go to the car wash more than I ever have in my life. Maybe it's because I left my car in Oklahoma and I drive our white truck everywhere. Everything shows up on white! Since it's such a big truck I don't really like to use the automatic car washes. Knowing me I'll take a mirror off or something when I try to drive through it. So I use the somewhat old fashioned car wash. And let me tell ya, I have issues with the car wash. The hose always seems to get in my way. The water backfires off of the truck and all over me. Then when I go to use the foam brush, they have it hanging up so high that by the time I actually get to it, the pink foam is falling all over me like I'm at a foam party back in college. Even worse, by the time I get the entire truck brushed down, the pink foam has dried into streaks. I'm just not fast enough. Then, by the time I'm actually finished with the whole horrible process, my arm feels like it's about to fall off and I now need a bath more than my truck did because of the strange mixture of foam, sweat, and water. I just can't seem to win. Greg makes it look so easy.

Although I do have to give props to whoever invented credit card machines at the car wash. That was pretty genius!

Home Sweet Home

Guess what! We upgraded to a larger travel trailer!!! Yay! OK, so you don't think we're absolutely crazy, let me first say that when Greg bought our travel trailer, we never in a million years thought we'd be selling our house and that I would join him full time on the road. After living in the trailer for a little over 10 months the walls were just starting to cave in on me. Greg would ideally like to live on the road for maybe five more years. That's a long time to live in an area you feel slightly claustrophobic in!

So while we were in Colorado Springs last weekend we decided to go to an RV dealership just to look at floor plans. We honestly didn't plan on purchasing one that day. We were so afraid that we were going to be way upside down on our "first" travel trailer and we had planned on paying it off before we upgraded. But, we found a trailer that really fit our needs and they actually gave us a little more than what we had left to pay off on our "first" trailer! We were stoked!

Last week was an absolute whirlwind! What was funny was we arrived at the dealership at 4:00 PM on Saturday afternoon, and no one even talked to us until thirty minutes before they closed. (The first rule in sales is never to judge someone! Everyone else there was in their retirement years. I guess they thought we were out of our league!) So of course we weren't able to actually do anything that day except negotiate a price. Well, on Monday sure enough they pre approved us. Which meant I had to get insurance lined up and a million other things. Then I had to make a "fly by the seat of my pants" trip back to Oklahoma to get stuff out of our storage unit that went with our trailer that we had taken out of it. I left on Tuesday and got back to CO on Thursday. Then Friday I was busy packing up and we left with our trailer when Greg got off work to an RV park that was down the road from the dealership. Saturday was spent doing paperwork, moving everything from one trailer to the next, then driving back to Lamar and setting everything up. We finally got everything situated yesterday! So far I am LOVING my new home! I did get a little frustrated on Saturday night because there are slight differences, but I think I was really just super exhausted. Not to mention I don't really deal well with change!

Here are some cool features about this trailer we didn't have in our other one:
1. It's a fifth wheel, rather than a bumper pull. Greg says he feels cooler towing it behind the truck! ;)
*2. Central vacuum cleaner!
*3. King size bed!
4. Oil rubbed bronze fixtures, hardware, and faucets!
5. A comfy rocking chair!
6. A larger hot water tank! I could actually wash my hair and body and I still had hot water left over!
7. WAAAAAYYYYY more storage!
8. Countertop space in the kitchen!
9. Solid surface countertops!
10. A fireplace!
11. A larger refrigerator!
12. A ceiling fan!
13. An "attic" fan!
14. An AC in our bedroom!
15. Plumbing for a washer and dryer!
*16. A convection/microwave combo!
* I've never had these in my life!

This trailer also has three slide outs rather than the one slide out we had in our other trailer! (Slide outs mean you have more space!) And this one is six feet longer than our other one!

So as you can tell I'm pretty pumped!

Blackberry Blues

My husband and I are both rockin' out some pretty old phones. I never used to care. I promise. But Greg's is pretty rough. Some of his buttons fall off, occassionally he can't view his screen, etc., etc. So we decided it was time for his free upgrade. Off to the AT&T store we go! Well, go figure, I decide I need to upgrade my phone as well. And of course, Greg decides he'll keep his. *sigh* After being in there about an hour with an impatient sales associate explaining the benefits and features of a BlackBerry vs. an iPhone I finally settled on a BlackBerry. I immediately had visions in my head of me chatting and texting away on my new trendy phone! Yay!

Then, the sales associate gets this "look" on his face while he's ringing us up. It appeared that he could still sell us the phone, but not for any discount because our cell phones have been "flagged". Great. Basically that meant that since we've been in lovely Lamar, we have been roaming. And granted we get free roaming, but apparently we are costing AT&T too much money. He said that his records showed that 60% of the time we are roaming and therefore would eventually be getting a letter stating that they are discontinuing our service. This REALLY sucks because most of our family and all the friends that I talk to the most are AT&T. We asked when we would be getting this letter and the sales associate said it could be anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months. And then once we get the letter it's because they are sending it to let us know we have a month or so until they cut us off.

We left the store utterly discouraged. I mean, we'll be moving in a few months, and probably to a town that has AT&T. The sales associate suggested calling AT&T and explaining our situation. But I think that will just speed up the letter sending process. So our bright idea is to cheat the system. I am trying not to talk on my cell phone. After 2 weeks I think Greg has decided to heck with it and he's talking away again. But I'm sticking to my guns. Despite the fact that I've told both my sister and best friend that I'm not going to answer my phone and they keep calling me (love you both!) only to hear my lovely voicemail. The other way we plan on cheating the system involves going to Colorado Springs every other weekend and talking on our phones as much as possible. OK, so we were planning on going to Springs anyway because we love it, so this just helps our plan! And if we happen to plug both of our phones into our chargers and then accidentally call each other and leave the lines open all night long...well, that should only help our ratios, right???

On a brighter note, I noticed my friend Randy gave a shout out to me in his blog! So right back at ya Randy man!!!!

The Housewife Wears Prada

My Sunglass Saga

I do not like to shop. Shocker, I know. Some fashion major I am. But, with my husbands help and encouragement, I am slowly curing that disese. And of all things, he is addicted to sunglasses. And rightfully so! He wore glasses for practically the first 25 years of his life. So after he had Lasik eye surgery, he splurged on a pair of sunglasses. Wouldn't you? When we first started dating he always said he wanted to buy me a pair of "real" sunglasses. So low and behold after a few months he bought me my first "real" pair of sunglasses. They were $50 and I thought that was OUTRAGEOUS! See, I was raised to be very conservative with my money. I was never allowed the luxury of owning a pair of sunglasses that cost more than maybe $10. So needless to say I absolutely treasured those sunglasses. Then, as fate would have it, I lost them at a 4th of July cook out about 2 years later. I was so upset.

So back to Sunglass Hut we went! This time, I was selling real estate, so we were trying to create that "image" that I think helps when you're in that industry. I bought a pair of Ray Bans. I loved them. But now, two years later, I'm starting to hate them. They aren't "in style" anymore and I think they look horrible on my face when my hair is up, which lately is 99% of the time. I felt so bad by these thoughts. Who am I to have a new pair of sunglasses? But, I managed to admit to my husband that I was not really liking the way my sunglasses look anymore. And guess what?! He totally agreed! He said he was sick of them awhile ago but thought I would get mad at him for saying so! See, once again it just proves that honesty is the best policy!!!

So while we were in Colorado Springs last weekend I was able to go to a Sunglass Hut! I swear we were there for at least an hour. And leave it to Greg to pick out the ones that actually look great on me. And believe it or not, they are *drum roll* PRADA!!!! I am so excited to have them! And I hate to be a person to brag about things, but honestly this is a big treat to me!!!! And then, best of all, Greg said that every six months he thinks I should be treated to some nice designer accessory or something. I have the best husband ever. But also, like I said, I'm not the best shopper. So I'm going to need some ideas on my next purchase. It'll be winter time then, so maybe a Burberry scarf? I promise I'm not spoiled.......