To The Moon and Beyond

This is just friggin’ cool. Branson is just friggin’ cool.

Lookin’ Good!

The patio looks great! I will try to remember to take a couple pics when I get home tonight. It’s going to be really pretty once I get some flowers in! I was also thinking I might make part of it a little veggie garden. I know that won’t be the prettiest looking border to a patio, but I think it might be fun to have some basil, maybe some peppers, and some lettuce and such planted. And I am darn tired of having my herbs planted in pots. I want the sprinklers to water them!! lol…

I also sprayed the Cutter Bug Free Backyard last night. That stuff is amazing! It controls mosquitos!! It says it lasts for one month, but the last time I sprayed it was for Jenny’s party around July 8th. And I JUST started noticing (CRAZY amounts of) mosquitos about a week ago. So that’s a good 2 months that it lasted. And it’s cheap and super easy to use. Just attach it to the hose turn on the water and spray! Then stay off the lawn until it dries. (I always wait a day to be safe, but it’s safe for kids and pets when it dries.) And there are seriously, NO mosquitos! So anyway, as of tonight, I can sit on my beautiful new patio and ponder the world in front of my firepit…

Now I just need to:

Buy a grill
Make a flower bed
Plant the flowers
Fill in the gaps under the fence (where Luka likes to sneak out of the yard)

Then move it inside to:
Frame my master bathroom mirror
Have the master bathroom tiled
Regrout (with silicone putty) the shower edge
Scrape off the Popcorn ceiling in my kitchen
Replace the kitchen lights
Replace the dining room chandelier
Hang a fan in the loft
Replace all the track lighting
Replace the front door light
Replace the light by the garage

Hmmm…I should be busy for a while, huh?

Fun With Patios

Today, I get a patio.

Can I tell you how wonderful those words are? It has taken me three months of trying to find someone (anyone!!) who was willing to build me a patio for less than the cost of the national debt, and who, after realizing it was a small 150 sq. ft. job–it’s a zero-lot line house, people!! I have no more room to add more patio!–would actually take on the project…BUT, I did it.

I found what appears to be an extremely professional and very competent company to build the patio in pavestones for the same cost as aggregate concrete (concrete with pebbles in it…). I am thrilled with the service so far. We will know for sure how they do when I get home from work today, as they should currently be at my home laying pavestones! The company that is doing the work is Precision Pavers (the link is to some pictures of their work), and the customer service I have thus far received is definitely worth shouting about. My design consultant, Tim, spent an hour with me Saturday giving me a quote for my teeny wheeny job. He even drew the patio design we decided on onto a quote sheet with graph paper, so that I could see the exact scematic! And today, when the bricks came in a slightly different shade than the samples he had shown me, he called to have me approve them. The new colors were actually even better than the original samples, and I was thrilled.

When he discoved today that my yard had a slight slope that he hadn’t noticed Saturday (because it was raining, and we were both trying to avoid getting soaked) he told me he would raise the low side for free.

So so far, I am extremely pleased. I will let you all know how the patio turns out. I think it will be lovely…

Oh, I also bought a patio set yesterday. I think the firepit will be a lot of fun. I see a S’mores party in my future!

Dinner Club + Boys = Hottie!

Did I tell you my friends and I are doing a dinner club? Well, we are. It is called the Too Much Sexy Dinner Club (after our old volleyball team, Too Much Sexy). We go to a different restaurant each week, following certain rules. We actually have written rules! The most important of which are:

1) No chain restaurants
2) Each week a new Host will be drawn at the end of dinner and that person must roll the alphabet die (courtesy of Scattegories)to see what letter the next week’s restaurant will begin with. For instance, if you rolled “I” you would have to find a restaurant that began with that letter.
3) The meal must be available for under $20, or two $$ on GuideLive

So this week, we went to Fireside Pies. They make gourmet pizzas in wood burning ovens. Tasty…

I thought this was just going to be an ordinary Dinner Club, but after we had a drink (Peach Sangria…yumm…) I learned that a particular boy would be coming who rarely came around. He is a friend of one of my friends from their college days at small university called The University of Texas…He is also an Aerospace Engineer, and deadly cute. I mean cute to rival Wentworth Miller and Johnny Depp. I mean Melt-Me-With-His-Eyes cute. I mean, so cute I can hardly stand to look at him. I mean so cute, my stomach does tightrope walking, trapeze artistry, and trampoline jumps all while balancing on the backs of butterflies…THAT cute.

I met him a year ago, but at the time, he was interested in a friend of the friend that introduced us. He was off limits, even though she wasn’t interested in him…Crazy girl!! But she is now engaged, so he is on limits again. Over the past year, we have run into each other several times. Each time, one of us has been dating someone. Each time, I get that rush of feelings that make me want to break up with whoever I am with. Right then and there. And possibly by text message just so I can end it faster. But brain cells prevail and I don’t do that. Then he is gone again.

But Wednesday night, he was there. Single. And I am single. The date with the architect earlier that day had gone well, but Hottie wiped that from my memory.

There was one person between him and I, but he was sitting at the end of the table, so we were able to talk some, although the arrangement meant it had to be a group conversation so I couldn’t lean over and whisper “would you please remove me to the backroom and ravage me with your strong arms and piercing eyes.” I had to make due with conversations about TV premiere week, and reminiscing about UT. I was a blubbering idiot. I felt like I was in 8th grade in the lunchroom sitting across from the hottest guy in school.

BUT, he looked at me a couple of times and caught my eye. Not just looked at me. Looked at me THAT way. That look is burned in my memory and I can literally close my eyes and see his looking back at me. His beautiful eyes.

I have made it very clear to our mutual friend that I have a massive crush. She has informed me that he thinks I am cute (by passing me a note under the table in physics class, of course). And she has obliged me and offered to set something up this weekend so that we can hang out.

I don’t know if this will go anywhere or not. But a year after meeting him, he still intrigues me, and I still find him indescribably hot. So we will see. It definitely made Dinner Club interesting…

Flip Flops, Anyone?

Anyone else wonder why no one used something like this during the 2004 election??

Birthday Wrap Up

I had a good birthday. I won’t say great because, to be honest, I was not looking forward to this one.

But Friday night, my friend Jenny threw me a birthday party, and took 10 of us out for pizza and beer, then we headed to a local bar…Who can dislike pizza and beer!!?

Saturday was a Bridal Shower on a party barge on Lake Lewisville…Sun, lakes, more beer?? Always fun.

Saturday night was Octoberfest…uh…Sausages and more beer…(Oh and I may have met a Longhorn Architect who may or may not be taking me to lunch today…and who may or may not seem to be a Planner…we all know how I feel about planners…(I HEART schedules)…)

Sunday was my actual birthday…I went to lunch with a friend…no beer I am sorry to say, but plenty of yummy Chinese food at a restaurant I had somehow never been to, but that has been there for as long as I have lived in Dallas…

Sunday night, dinner and presents with the ‘rents…Which included a PAMA Martini–which is a Pomegranate Martini for you laypeople–and an after dinner drink of Tia Maria and Bailey’s…I now HEART Tia Maria and Bailey’s…

Then I crashed.

Poor Popeye…

I May Need This Tonight…

…Or, my friends who are chauffering me around for my birthday may need it!!

The iBreathe…It seems cheezy at first, but ya know, for $50?? Maybe it’s not a bad idea…
It connects to your iPod and can read your blood alcohol level to within .o1 BAC…So I guess to be safe, if it says .08 you shouldn’t test it and drive…but that’s probably not a bad idea anyway.

Interesting…

Via Dylan…who’s back!!

This Will Be Me on Sunday

…Except one year younger…

That unbridled joy, the eagerness to plunge into another year of existence dribbles out through your pores, replaced by a constant dread cementing in your stomach. Age is now “significant,” birthdays have “meaning,” years have “gravity,” all of it like a crow pecking on the inside of your skull. So you’re turning 28? Only two more years to 30! And you know what they say about women at 30. Oh, and you’d better have your career all worked out – wait, you don’t? You’ve almost finished your twenties! What’ve you been doing all this time? All these other people have done great things by 28 – but I guess you’re still “working it out.”

Yup, that pretty much sums it up…perfectly…Thank you Miss Opinionista for writing my blog post today…you took the words right out of my mouth.

Read the rest of the birthday post here.

Austin Adventures…

Well, other than losing the biggest game of the year, I had a great weekend in Austin!

My friend T picked me up from the airport at noon and took the rest of the day off to hang out with me. We went to lunch and then to the University Co-op to buy lots of great longhorn stuff. I bought this jersey (but cut for girls), and this car emblem (I can’t believe I have had the new car for almost a year and had no Longhorn insignia on it!!!), and a burnt orange unbrella, and this sticker for my burnt orange Nalgene bottle.

Oh, and I got reprimanded for not explaining where my ticket to the Texas/OSU game came from…As this blog is anonymous, he will have to deal with not having his name splattered on the internet and simply being called P, but the ticket came from a very good friend, P, who I have actually known since high school, although we didn’t become friends until college. For my birthday, he gave me one of his season tickets…Quite a gift, given that he could have sold the pair of tickets for about $1200!

We had a blast together. We went to College Game Day Saturday morning, which was broadcasting from UT’s Track stadium next to the Darryl K. Royal Memorial Stadium (the football stadium), and made it on TV, sort of…we found ourselves on Tivo! For all of about 2.2 seconds!!

Then we went home and crashed for a few hours to gear up for the game. And good thing we did! We went back downtown to tailgate around 4, and not only had the RESERVED parking space we thought we’d be parking in been sold, but we had to park several blocks farther away! We had a 12 block walk to campus! Nuts!! On the way though, we had to stop at a tailgate of course! We had both been invited to tailgates by friends, and after speaking to them both, discovered they would be tailgating in the same parking lot. Great, we thought, we can just stop by both. But low and behold, when we get there, after wading through thousands of people and blocks and blocks of tailgate parties, we found our friends…At the SAME tailgate!! It turns out, our friends knew each other and have been tailgating together for years! Out of hundreds and hundreds of tailgate parties, we were both invited to the same one!

After a few beers, and a lot of gawking at the incredible number of people,

we headed to the stadium. Our seats were in the South Endzone, in new, temporary seating. The seats were great! 7th row, and right above Bevo, our mascot Longhorn.

Unfortunately, several of the season ticket holders around us apparently decided $1200 was worth missing the game, because there were several Buckeyes around us. And to our dismay, they were really nice. I say to our dismay, because it would have been easier to hate them after we lost if they had been assholes.

After the game, we grabbed some late dinner at Kirby Lane, and then headed home to crash, exhausted from the long day.

Sunday, I got to go to the lake with T, and met all of her friends who I have heard about now for the past year, but never met. We had a great time…and I may have imbibed a few too many beers, but it felt great to get on the lake.

Sunday night, I met P’s girlfriend. I am sure I came off like a scrappy-looking drunk-ass because they picked me up from the lake and we went straight to dinner, so needless to say, I was not in the best shape to meet the girlfriend. But she was very sweet and pretty, and seems to be totally into P. It was nice to see him so happy.

Then I hopped on a plane and headed home. And crashed. What a weekend!!

I have posted all the photos to Flickr in a photo set, so go check out the rest of the pics…there are some really cute ones.