Help Bring Lilly Home

Even before I started blogging myself I was reading Adrienne's blog. Adrienne and her husband, Jim, have an adorable son named Owen who they adopted from Russia and have been through several miscarriages and two failed domestic adoptions. Throughout everything Adrienne has remained positive and continued to seek out new opportunities to adopt a second child. Now they have finally found their daughter, Lilly, on a waiting child list and are raising money to bring her home from South Korea.

A lot of awesome businesses are offering contributions (you buy something and a portion goes to Adrienne and Jim's fund) and they are also having an AMAZING giveaway. For as little as $5 you can win a chance at a fab prize (like a blog makeover or canon rebel camera) and help them bring their daughter home.

Click on the link below for more details!

A Friday Morning Rant

Even though I am not married or engaged yet I heard something on the radio while driving into work this morning that really bothered me. The conversation had come from an article but since I missed beginning of the discussion (I was on the phone with K telling him that Hanna ate an ant this morning) I have no clue where this article is.

The gist of the discussion centered around people writing their own/changing the traditional wedding vows. No big deal right? If you want to put your own creative spin on vows more power to you. HOWEVER apparently there is a growing trend of people adding "escape clauses" into the vows. Such as "I promise that if something changes I will respect the time we had together."

Yes, I realize that some marriages don't work out for very valid reasons (abuse, infidelity, drug use to name a few) but too many people seem to put no thought into getting married because they know they can just leave if times get a little bit hard. If you are going to get married, make sure you are in it for the long haul and know that there will be plenty of times where things are not lovey-dovey. That's why they say "for better or worse." It's not "for better until I find something better."

Anyways, I'll get off the soap box now, I hope you all have wonderful Fridays!

Pictures

Thursday seems to be my unofficial meme day, so here we go. I have seen this one around and thought it would be fun, feel free to steal if you wish!

1. Go to Photobucket
2. Type in your answer to the question in the "search" box
3. Use only the first page
4. Copy the html and paste for the answer.

1) First Name?

[this girl looks pretty fun]

2)Favorite Color?

[pink motercycle=amazing, I think Tamara from Real Housewives of OC needs this]

3)Celebrity Crush?

[yes, I know I am a nerd.]

4) Band You are Listening To Now?

[I am not literally listening to music right now, but I do love Lady GaGa]

5) Favorite Movie?

[does 3 make more sense now?]

6) Favorite Disney Princess?

7) Favorite Alcoholic Beverage?

8) Dream Vacation?

[fiji]
9) Favorite Dessert?

10) What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

Puppy Breath: Advice Needed!

Hanna has started getting in her adult teeth but her baby teeth don't really seem to be falling out so they are starting to rot and her mouth looks pretty gross and crowded. When I can get a look at her mouth that is...she has always been a little weird about letting me look at her teeth but since she started teething it has gotten even worse. K and I have been working on trying to get her more comfortable with us touching her mouth but she has a long way to go.

Anyways, I know shih tzu's can have teeth issues, so it will most likely take a long time before all the baby teeth come out. We give her a lot of chew toys and even freeze some so she doesn't seem to be in much pain but her breath is sooooo disgusting right now! Seriously...it smells like a sewer. It's nothing like regular dog breath at all.

I saw online that rotting baby teeth can cause this, but do any of you dog owners have any advice on how to make her breath smell better? Or any other teething tips?

Thanks in advance!

Boston Recap

We are back! The trip to Boston was awesome, it was so great to get away and have some fun. We packed a lot of activity into just a few days so I am wiped out and dreading going back to work tomorrow (but looking forward to catching up on my blog reading.) We also ate at so many awesome restaurants so stepping onto the scale is a scary prospect.

Here is what we did (the basics):

Thursday---arrived basically on time and ate dinner with Sissy at Zocalo.

Friday---went out to breakfast with K and Sissy at Zaftigs, toured part of the Freedom Trail, hung out at Faneuil Hall, had dinner in the North End and stayed up late hanging out and eating cannoli.

Saturday---K, Sissy, her boyfriend, R, and I went to the Sam Adam's Brewery tour, ate a big lunch at Parish then went to the Red Sox Game (we tried to go to Boston Beer Works but it was too crowded.)

Sunday---drove out of visit my grandparents and spent the day hanging out by their pool and showing K around Essex and Gloucester, Mass then went out for seafood.

And now for some pictures...in no real order:

View of the Boston Common from R's office

Old vrs. New

Sam Summer Ale

Fenway Park

K and I in the North End (not the best pic...but now you know I am a real person!)

Old Granary Burying Ground---I took a ton of pictures of headstones

On the plan on the way there

A Bunch of "B"s

I'll be taking a brief blogging break while I am in Boston, having a blast enjoying

beer, baseball, and the war against the British (from a historical standpoint, of course.)

I'll be back on Monday, hope you all have banging weekends!

(was that super cheesy?)

So Not On My Diet...but so yummy

I have been doing really well eating low carb, especially during the week, and slowly but surely K and I are losing weight. But sometimes I have to give myself a little slack (or a lot of slack...as I am sure will be the case during our upcoming trip to Boston.) So for a little slack...we got these on the way to Hanna's vet appointment on Saturday:
Chicken, egg and cheese on a sunflower seed bagel from Chick-fil-A. Delicious. I would never think to eat chicken and egg together...but it is awesome.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

My siblings and I are all huge fans of the Harry Potter books. As far as the movies go, I like them, they are entertaining but can't touch the books. Personally, I just look at them as two seperate things to keep myself from getting bogged down on all the things that are left out.

I was skeptical to see the Half-Blood Prince because my brother, who went at midnight...in costume, said it was the worst movie yet and everything important was left out. But of course, I had to go see it.

However, I was pleasantly surprised, it is a very good movie. Yes, it is very different from the book but as a separate entity I truly enjoyed it. In fact I think it is the best Harry Potter movie yet. So go see it! Even if you don't like the books I think you will like it!

And here is something else...maybe this makes me a senior citizen...but my new favorite time to go to the movies is Saturday or Sunday morning. The AMC by my house is only $5 before noon and it is much less crowded. They also have $5 breakfast deals (haven't tried that yet...it might be nasty...but you could always smuggle in your own.) I see K and I going to a lot more movies in the future because of the great deal!

Debbie Downer

Sorry for being so down and un-fun lately, I promise my mood is on the way up and next week my blog should return to it's normal snarky and (I think) fun self.

In the meantime here is a random meme...and have a happy weekend!

eating: today I have had a think thin bar (they are awesome heard about them from Black Labs and Lilly) and a salad for lunch.
drinking:water...it's really all I ever drink...except alcohol.
wearing: seven jeans, white tank top and blue short sleeved cardigan from the limited and light brown snakeskin flats from DSW...it's jeans day at work.
hair: down
nails: semi-short and unpolished, I rarely have nail polish on my finger nails because I pick it off. Toenails are pink.
purchased today: nothing yet, maybe some wine later or some food.
wanting: $500 to fall from the sky so I don't have to use my money to pay the deductible for my car!
What bill do you hate paying the most? my bills don't normally bother me too much, so I guess just the bill I mentioned above at the moment!
Where was the last place you had a romantic dinner? Hmmm...hard to say. I guess it depends on your definition of romantic. K and I went to this cool gastropub last weekend so I guess it would be that.
Name of your first grade teacher? Miss Coleman...I think.
What do you really want to be doing right now? laying on a beach
What did you want to be when you were growing up? lots of things...a waitress, a pilot, archaeologist, teacher, news reporter...to name a few
How many colleges did you attend? just one
Why did you choose the shirt that you have on right now? The cardigan I picked because I haven't worn it in awhile and the white tank top because I wear either a black or white cami almost everyday!
Gas prices? they seem to be going down again, so that's good.
If you could move anywhere and take someone with you? I would move to the beach and take K with me...but that's not really practical right now.
First thought when the alarm went off this morning? Five more minutes!
Last thought before going to sleep last night? I hope the puppy doesn't wake me up in the night. (she didn't, I slept very well)
What errand/chore do you despise? cleaning toilets really grosses me out...so I don't do it. I actually have never done it in my life. Of chores I do...vacuuming. K does both of those things at this point.
If you didn't have to work, would you volunteer? absolutely! That would be awesome!
Get up early or sleep in? well I used to always sleep in, but now that I am older I actually like getting up (relatively) early.
Have you found real love yet? Yes.
When did you first start feeling old? When my little brother got to high school haha. Actually, I don't know...some days I feel old and some days I feel like a kid.
Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual? no way!
Favorite guilty pleasure? hmmm that's hard...definitely food. Maybe loaded cheese fries?
Cowboys or Indians? Cowboys
What radio station is your car radio tuned to right now? Mix 106.5
Do you like the person who sits directly across from you at work? no one sits across from me at work.
What famous person would you like to have dinner with? Peter Jackson, the director of Lord of the Rings...because I am a huge nerd. Or maybe Tim Gunn.
Have you ever had to use a fire extinguisher for its intended purpose? I have never used one at all.
Last book you read for real? I read all the time and re-read books over and over again...I can't actually remember what book I finished last (I think I may be experiencing short term memory loss haha) at the moment but right now I am re-reading Jemima Jones, just for something to read.
Do you have a teddy bear? Yes I do, I got him when I turned 3 and his name is A.G., I slept with him every night until K and I moved in together. Now he has a place of honor in my walk in closet and whenever K is out of town I sleep with him again.
Do you go to church? On Christmas Eve.
At this point in your life would you rather start a new career or a new relationship? Definitely a new career!

And it's only Wednesday...

They say things happen in threes...so far this week my car has been keyed and my air conditioner broke tonight. So what's the third thing?

My mom's washing machine broke this week and I heard a really sad story about a colleague's puppy passing away very suddenly...I wonder if either of them could count as the third.

Although none of these things are really horrible (I mean except for the puppy...but I don't really know the guy that well or the puppy, I just happened to be talking to him about it) I am really ready for some better luck.

Please, Please, Please don't ruin the book

Seeing this preview on TV tonight made me feel slightly better about my poor car. I absolutely love the book "The Time Traveler's Wife" and I am so excited for the movie. It looks pretty good and I think Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams were perfectly cast. However, if the movie ruins the books for me like some movies (cough..."The Other Boleyn Girl...cough) I swear I will cry for one hundred years.



PS Sorry that it is a little cut off on the side...I am not tech saavy enough to fix it.

Update on the car

note: I have been too depressed to actually take pictures of my poor car but when I do I promise I will post them.

When I got home last night I called my insurance company (USAA...they are fab by the way) and talked to a very nice guy named Albert who walked me through the whole process of filing a claim (I have never had to do that before) and how everything would work. Then today I scheduled an appointment to bring the car into the body shop on the 27th and pick up a rental car. I opted to not do it next week since I am going to Boston and didn't want to deal with it all when I was out of town.

Everyone I have talked to has been very nice, it just is going to suck paying the deductible. What I have decided to do is pay with money from my (small) savings instead of putting it on my credit card or something. I don't have any credit card debt and I hate having it, thus pay off credit cards right away whenever possible. So instead of paying a credit card I am going to myself pay my savings back and hopefully this will encourage me to try and save more in the future. And then something good might come out of all this.

I guess this is life and I should feel lucky that I wasn't in a car accident or hurt at all. In the grand scheme of things it isn't a big deal...just annoying. Hopefully whoever did it gets what they are due at some point...karma is a bitch!

Help :(

I just took the time to compose this email to my GATED apartment complex so this should sum up the sitution for you:

Hello,
I know there is probably nothing you can do in this situation, however I wanted to let you all know in case there were other reports of this happening to other residents. I was away for the weekend and left my car in the parking lot, since we didn't get home until yesterday evening and I have no clue when this happened I didn't notice the damage until this morning when I was on my way to work. My car has been keyed very badly, it's a bright red car and now there is a huge white scratch running down the entire length of the drivers side. I have no idea of how much this is going to cost me to fix or what this is going to do to the value of my car (it is just over a year old, has under 10k miles on it, and is in perfect condition) so obviously I am very angry. I was under the impression that this was a very safe complex and while I am by no means blaming you, as I said, I just wanted to make you aware.
Thanks,
Cee

I'll try to post pictures later, but do you have any advice? I havn't called my insurance or the car dealership yet to see what they think but my deductible is $500 which is really more then I would want to pay right now. I will keep you all updated but please let me know if you have any ideas or if this has ever happened to you/what you did. I am beyond pissed off.

UPDATED: After talking to all the boys at work they seem to think that it could be buffed out...I am going to my car dealership's body shop during lunch to get an estimate then I will go from there to see if it makes sense to call my insurance company, have them do it without involving insurance or attempt to fix it myself. I'll give you another update later.

UPDATED AGAIN: So I went to the body shop during lunch and it looks like my whole driver's side needs to be repainted. The total...$1600. And it will take 4 days to fix. Obviously I am going to call my insurance company tonight but it looks like I will be paying the deductible. It's just annoying because it's not like I had parked in a bad area or was driving poorly. Yuck.

Jon's on the prowl

Hope you all had fab weekends! Mine was very relaxing other then stopping my brother from having a party at my parents house on Friday night. Bruno was really funny but don't see it if you are uncomfortable with full frontal male nudity and some crude humor. Personally I thought it was hilarious, but it definitely isn't for everyone. I have a sick sense of humor.



Here is something that almost made me vomit over the weekend...

[photo found here]

Seriously Jon...seriously? Any respect or sympathy I had for him is now completely gone.

What's Going On aka A Random Post

• I called out sick from work yesterday, my stomach was bothering me and I felt like I just needed a mental health day. It was fabulous to just lay around doing nothing all day and I feel quite refreshed!
• My parents are at the beach for a long weekend so we are watching Gryffin...he has slept over at our apartment since Wednesday and we are staying at my parent's house from tonight until Sunday so we can also keep an eye on my little brother (he is 17 so my parents are worried he will have a party or something.)
• K is almost done with his summer class (criminal law), he just has to take his final on Monday. He is planning to study a lot this weekend.
• Fingers crossed...I will be going to see "Bruno" on Saturday. I know some people hated it, but I loved "Borat" and I am very excited to check out Sasha Baron Cohen's latest venture. I hope it isn't too hard to get tickets since it comes out today! Other then that it should be a low key weekend.
• I have lost almost 10 pounds since I started "Atkins." I use the term loosely since I am doing more low carb/low sugar. When I really stuck to Atkins induction weight came off very fast but it's not a very realistic diet for long term so it's going more slowly---and I am ok with it. I have been very good during the week but it's hard not to slack off a bit on the weekends!

Happy Friday Everyone! Anyone have any cool weekend plans?

Richard Lawson, how I love thee

Last night I was hoping for more fodder for the fire that is my mockery of "NYC Prep," but the episode was pretty blah. Thankfully, Richard Lawson at Gawker, as always, was able to make up for the wasted hour of my life with a hilarious recap. Check it out, I promise you will laugh!

Hanna at 3 months old

I have been meaning to do this since Hanna turned 3 months old and now she is almost 4 months old...better late then never!

She is completely crate trained and potty trained (knock on wood.) All I have to say is "kennel up" and she runs right in, in the morning she gets a kong then in the afternoon she gets some treats. I come home at lunch to feed and walk her then (I think) she goes back to sleep until we get home. The only thing is...she still sleeps on the bed...in her crate. Honestly, I don't know if that will change, unless we take her out of the crate and she keeps sleeping on the bed. What a spoiled dog.

Hanna knows some tricks already and we are working on more, she is very active and can be a bit of a diva. She likes to follow me around the house but doesn't really like to be held unless she is sleepy or in a new area. My mom got me a puppy purse so I am working on carrying her in that so I can take her more places. According to our vet she probably won't get over 10 pounds (big difference from Gryffin who is 15.) She is a tiny girl with a big personality!

All in all she is a great dog and we are so glad we have her. Here are some pictures:

On a walk with her parents.

Taking a break and being carried by Daddy.

Pre-haircut, she looked like a mop!


Post-haircut! So pretty!

First hair bows! They were 4th of July themed but after

playing with Gryffin all weekend they came out.

How I Made the Most of My Day Off

At first glance I appear to be a very organized person, however my closet and dresser drawers always seem to get very messy. Since I had last Friday off of work for the 4th of July I decided to tackle cleaning out my clothes and getting everything organized.

Here is the before (don't judge me too hard):


And the after (I just need to get some shelves for the shoes):



And the bags for Goodwill (some of the stuff in there came from K's dresser but a lot was mine):
Now I just have to work to keep it this neat!

I wish I could declare my independence from work

I'm back! Well, I didn't really go anywhere but K and I did spend the bulk of the weekend at my parents' house. I hope you all had lovely holidays, we had a great time and I saw probably the best fireworks of my life. They were seriously awesome!

Of course it had to come to an end and now it's just another Monday at work...fortunately this is my last full week of work in July!

I'll be back soon with a post about my productive day off on Friday and a Hanna update (with pictures.) For now it is time to get back to the grind catch up on blogs.

The Name Game

It's Meme Day...aka I am bored-at-work-and-think-these-are-fun-and-they-give-me- something-to-do Day!

I have seen this one a couple of different places, feel free to steal if you want!

10. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother & father's middle name) Jean Meredith (yes, my dad's middle name is Meredith, it is a family name)

9. NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother's dad, fathers dad) David Lynn (yes, my dad's father's name was Lynn, apparently they liked naming males sterotypically female names on that side of the family)

8. STARWARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, 2 letters of your first) Burco

7. DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, fav animal) Pink Monkey (that was a hard one, I like a lot of different colors and animals)

6. SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born) Marie Knoxville (I like this one!)

5. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav drink, add "THE" to the beginning) The Blue Screwdriver (also hard for the color reason and I like a lot of drinks)

4. FLY GIRL/GUY NAME: (1st 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters ofyour last name) Corr

3. GANGSTA NAME: ( fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie) Cookie Dough Sugar

2. ROCK STAR NAME: (current pets name, current street name) Hanna Gate

1. STRIPPER NAME: ( name of your fav perfume/cologne, fav candy) Brit Twizzlers

Sad little girls pretending to be women (with little boys mixed in too)

The first time I watched "NYC Prep" I didn't know what to think, however now that I have watched it again and let it absorb a bit I feel as though I can actually put into words my feelings on this spectacle.

What it really comes down to is these kids have sad lives. They stride around the Upper East Side with no parental control as if they are characters in an extremely wealthy version of Oliver Twist. Minus the whole pickpocketing part because they have Daddy and Mommy's credit cards instead. The clutch their blackberries and iPhone like the security blankets their parent's probably instructed their nannies to take away from them 17 or so years ago so as to not adversely affect them getting into the Ivy League.

They pretend to be adults however there is a jaded sadness lurking below the surface along with the teenage awkwardness they try so hard to hide.

Here are my thoughts on our "stars":

Kelli is pretty blah. She is a semi-cute girl with a lot of money so she looks put together but plop her into middle America and she would be your standard high school girl. Apparently she wants to be a singer but we haven't seen any of her talent yet. Like every other prep school girl in NYC apparently, she has long brown hair.

Camille is Kelli's BFF who I think is supposed to be the "smart girl." To me she just seems immature and is very strange looking. She seems to be very concerned with getting ahead and fitting in. She may in fact be a cross-eyed alien living on Earth...similar to Ramona, a bug-eyed alien living on Earth. (wow Men in Black got it right, aliens do hide out in NYC)

Jessie is the "fashionista," although so far I haven't seen her wear anything amazing. She seems to be living the life of a UES woman in her 40s...doing charity work and being more obsessed with the labels in her closet then people.

PC, whose name actually stands for Peter Carey...not Personal Computer or Politically Correct...as I was expecting, is Jessie's BFF and perhaps a potential love interest for her? Like Jessie, he also appears to be actually in his 40s, or maybe even 50s. As an aging playboy he has grown tired of the "casual sex" of prep school and is ready for a relationship. He hopes that his therapist will help him work through his issues so he can find love. (seriously)

Sebastian is a perfect blend of surfer, Frenchman and douche-bag. He uses his bilingual abilities to hook up with as many girls as possible. I'm sure that was his parent's intentions when they enrolled him in French class at age 2. One "como sa va" and a flip of his golden locks and the ladies swoon.

Taylor is my personal favorite because she actually seems like a normal teenager. She goes to public school but apparently wants to hang out with the prep school brats...at this point she has gone on a couple dates with Sebastian (poor thing.) When she grows up she wants to be a philosopher(huh?) and for fun she is reading a book called "like 100 greatest philosophers." I will have to check that one out at Barnes &Nobel Taylor, thanks for the recommendation.

Are you all watching this show? What do you think?