Working for the New Year

Just a quick post while I'm sneaking some time in on the interwebs at work. It's the least they can do for me, since they are making me work on New Year's Eve.

2008 was a pretty dang awesome year for us. Captain Carl and I both had jobs for the whole year....first time in 3 years that has happened. I started my dream career on the side too, and I'm now a professional photographer. Hopefully within a year or two I'll be able to do that full-time. But until then, I feel very blessed to have succeeded doing it part-time. My photography income paid for Christmas this year, and then some. Not bad.

We watched the Kiddo inch ever closer to manhood in 2008. Every day he gets further away from being a little boy. He has hairy legs, he shaves, he's taller than both of us and he's beginning to think about which college he wants to attend.

We are truly blessed. I know I complain a lot here, that's just my nature. I tend to dwell on the negatives. But when I stop and think about our little life here in Texas, I am astounded how lucky we are.

My resolution for 2009 is to keep things in perspective and be thankful for all the wonderful blessings in my life.

My parents are here this week staying with us. Tonight we'll sing karaoke and eat crab dip and fight over card games. And I will be so very very happy.

Happy New Year to all my bloggy land friends!

24 Hour Fatness

Captain Carl joined 24 Hour Fitness today. You know what that means, right? Yep, I'm gonna have to start working out again. I can't be the fat wife...I REFUSE to be the fat wife.

This is really good news for both of us. We've been too fat for about 2 years...long past "plump" and "hefty". We are obese, plain and simple. What can I say? We love our hamburgers and ranch dressing. We also love to not exercise. Bad combination.

I'm really proud of Captain Carl for doing this. I'm hoping his motivation will rub off on me. I'm hoping I'll be a raging bitch for about 6 weeks while I get used to my awesome new lifestyle.

His first session with his personal trainer (holy shit, a personal trainer even!) is on Monday. I will be on my treadmill the same day. Tonight we are having french fries with our dinner. Baby steps, people.

Happy Holidays from Yo Mama

I'll be out of town for a few days celebrating Baby J's birthday with my family.

I hope all my friends out there in bloggy land have a wonderful holiday!!

Peace and love, homies!

P.S. I took this picture in a cemetery, so it has a little bit of a creepy feel to it, which is awesome. Maybe it's more Gothmas than Christmas, though...hmmm, I think I just created a holiday.

Merry Gothmas Everyone!

Colin Firth and Wine: A Winning Combination

We spent the weekend with Captain Carl's parents, celebrating Christmas early with them. There was a lot of wine, a lot of food and a lot of presents. Can't get much better than that...especially the wine part.

As an added bonus, my mother-in-law got the Mamma Mia dvd from Mailman Mike. My father-in-law's look of horror in response to the gift made Mailman Mike VERY happy. Because we live to torture each other in this family.

My mother-in-law is completely in love with this movie and saw it in the theater 4 times. Four! Captain Carl and I can barely manage to see that many movies in a year. So she begged Captain Carl and my father-in-law to watch it with us. After my FIL faked a seizure for about a minute in response, we decided it would be best for them to take the Kiddo and go shopping at Best Buy while the ladies watched the movie alone. Probably for the best....I would have really hated to stab Captain Carl in the eye with my wine charm after he mocked the movie for the 70 bazillionth time.

So off the boys went, out came the wine (again) and on went the movie. It was super cute, a very good chick flick. Plus one of my TOP 5 men was in it...Colin Firth. Sooo lickable in a nerdy Mr. Darcy British way.

See??

I did hate that they turned him gay in the movie though...he is soooo hetero.

Would a gay man let his wife dress like this? I don't think so.

The gays do like him though, so I'm told. One of my friends who happens to be a gay man went to the Mamma Mia premiere in New York. He got close enough to take Colin's picture and told me he is even more gorgeous in person. His boyfriend got to shake his hand. Bitch.

If it had been me, I would have immediately licked my own hand because that's about as close you can get to licking Colin Firth in real life. What?? Is that weird?

Here are the pics he took.

Well hello, Mr. Darcy.

I bet he totally grew that beard in one day. Dude standing behind him is totally jealous.

P.S. My parents and sister just flew in for Christmas last night...sooooo happy!!

No One Wants To Play Murder Victim With Me

Last week Captain Carl's cool Aunt S. came from Oklahoma for a short visit and overnight stay. We love it when she comes to see us because she's a totally fantastic person. Also, her Christmas gift to us this year was going out for dinner. Bonus! We love dinner!

Captain Carl's brother, Mailman Mike, also came over with his girlfriend so they could see Aunt S. and get in on her Christmas present. So we all drive to the restaurant, but we had to take two separate cars because there were so many of us. We chose a little Mexican food place, which was okay...nothing spectacular, except that The Kiddo and I loved the salsa so much we wanted to drink it. No one else liked it as much as we did, so clearly they are dumb and have no taste.

A good time was had by all, we leave and I'm riding home in Aunt S.'s car with The Kiddo and Captain Carl. Mailman Mike and Girlfriend J are in the other. Unfortunately, Aunt S.'s car chose that moment to get a flat tire. But fortunately, we had another car and we were only about 3 miles from our house.

Captain Carl takes everyone home with him except Mailman Mike and myself. We volunteered to stay behind with the car and wait until Captain Carl came back with a flashlight and tools. Plus, I saw a cat across the street and I wanted to catch him and take him home, thus completing my trio of cats and hereby becoming a true Crazy Cat Lady.

So first I try sneaking up on the cat. Which is like trying to sneak up on Chuck Norris. Impossible. Then I give up because Mailman Mike notices that there is a guy watching me from his front window as I duck walk across his lawn in the dark. So I stand up and skip back to the car...because I figure if he sees me skipping he knows I'm not a burglar, just a mental patient.

When I get back to the car, I realize that about 20 people have driven by us and only one stopped to ask if we were alright. A few slowed down to stare, but most just kept on driving. We were in a residential neighborhood where the speed limit was 20...it's not like these people were going 60 and didn't have time to register that we needed help. So I got a little pissed off at the state of humanity in our country today. Then I got a good idea and quickly forgot about that.

I asked Mailman Mike if he thought someone would stop if I were alone and hurt on the side of the road. He gave a nervous half-laugh...cause he knows me and probably knew this wasn't going anywhere good.

Then I told him my awesome idea.

Me: Hey Mike, how about I lie down on the road next to the car, and when the next person turns onto the street, you stand over me with the tire iron and then when the headlights hit us, you turn and run in the other direction.

Mailman Mike: Uh, that probably wouldn't be a good idea.

Me: No it wouldn't be a good idea. It would be an AWESOME idea.

Mailman Mike: *blink*

Me: Do you think anyone would stop then?

Mailman Mike: Actually, they would probably follow me and ask if I needed help.

Me: Or! They would follow you and then shoot you. We are in Texas, after all.

Mailman Mike: True. I don't think this game would end well for me in either scenerio.

Me: Oh come on! I'll even twitch and drool to make it look authentic!


So we didn't do it, even though I know Mike would have totally been up for it if he'd had about 5 more margaritas. That's the difference between me and Mike. I will do the crazy shit when I'm totally drunk AND when I'm totally sober.

My Milkshake Thinks I'm Special

The Cup Nazi

There is a lady in my office that has appointed herself in charge of our break room. Her official title is the extra special executive assistant to the regional vice president of cow tipping, or something like that. But her secret title is "Cup Nazi". Apparently my office is going through styrofoam cups at an alarming rate. Because one day a few weeks ago I walked into the break room to find a padlock on the cabinet where the cups are kept.

A PADLOCK.

To guard the cups.

That is the actual cabinet...I'm not even kidding.

So the Cup Nazi comes to the break room every morning and puts out our allotted number of cups for the day. She also makes two pots of coffee of the flavors she has deemed "Coffees of the Month". She even bought a dry-erase board that she mounted to the cabinet and writes on it every day "Coffee made fresh at 7:35am". Then she went out and bought all these fancy glass jars to put the sweet'n'low, sugar, creamers, etc. in. And she now has a little rolling cart she uses to bring all the super important coffee supplies to the break room in. So I guess what she is saving the company in cups, she is spending on that crap. Makes sense to me.

Oh, and she changed the brand of hot chocolate we have too. And the new brand sucks monkey balls. And one day there wasn't any at all. So because I am a passive aggressive smart ass, I wrote a little note on her stupid dry-erase board that said "Hey we need more hot chocolate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". I swear I used that many exclamation points. And then I skipped back to my cubicle to wait. Low and behold, the next morning there were 5 (Five!) hot chocolate packets and my note had been scrubbed from the board. So I went ahead and wrote another note that said "I'm sorry your job sucks so hard that you have resorted to ruling over the break room with an iron fist, but please change the brand of hot chocolate back to Nestle' as this brand is awful and also I like products that end with an e'....." Strangely enough, that note also got scrubbed from the board, but still no Nestle'.