What's so amazing that keeps us stargazing?

Hi! So I guess I took a long enough hiatus, and am back in blog business. Hope you all had great holiday and got to hug lots of people you love.

Since last update, I got to have a festivus, which was real fun and of course my heart was nearly bursting with love and happiness. I think everyone had a good time although we didn't manage to have the gift exchange, and there was no dance party portion of the evening. Maybe next year I will ditch the karaoke in favor of dance party. Here is a link to my photos: Festivus 2006.
And here is a link to Bo's much better photos...as it turns out having a) a better camera, and b) well, talent, makes for far superior party pics. This has further humbled me, and my pathetic lack of photography skill: Bo Knows Photos. I hope everyone had a great time...Maria and I are tentatively planning another party in March sometime...maybe in Austin?

Dreamgirls??

Don't mess with us.

Best Frens (plus loads of Chardonnay)

I gaze adoringly at Chad and Reido.

Like cute Neapolitan Ice Cream.

Super cuteness. They are probably laughing at...

Me and Fro rocking out brother/sister style.

See? Bursting with Happiness!

I then went home for Christmas. Fro's cute new gf came along for Christmas eve too so she was fun to have around. We played board games and gorged on steaks and potatoes...it was glorious. My favorite gift was my new crock pot! I used it this past Friday to make pot roast...you put in raw food, go to work, and when you get home you have a hearty meal! Amazing.

Then New Years was in Austin this year. Mom's BFF threw a party so we went and ate delicious gumbo and filipino food. Afterward, Aneil and I went to his friend Jenny's party, and we danced the night away! It was pretty fun. Also, New Years Eve-eve, Aneil and I went to Alamo Drafthouse with his pal Aly and her bf Klaus, and we watched these guys make fun of Die Hard, Mystery Science Theater style. It was super funny. Then we went out on the town with Aneil's friends John and Johnny. They were most excellent dancers and we had a great time. Aneil and I are all about the boogie lately. Next time we are in Austin, we all have to go to Red Fez and shake our moneymakers together!

I also attended the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. Mom and I had fun and the Tigers won, so hurrah!

Here we are in the superdome. It was LOUD.

Fro is the one in the middle playing the quads. We were real proud.

Hooray! Go Tigers!

I have since returned home and after a whirlwind week of driving through Louisiana and Texas, I was exhausted. So this past week has been all about maxing and relaxing (chillaxing?) so that was glorious. I start school this week, so it will be back to constant activity for the next few months, but I don't mind.

Here is a list of things I love this week:

• White Condiments - I have been putting sour cream on most foods, but for sweets I prefer cool whip.
• Sarah Mclachlan's cover of Kermit the Frog's "Rainbow Connection." It nearly brought me to tears last week. Just so pretty.
• The SAINTS! NFC Championship here we come!!!
• My Boss - made me a pan full of homemade lemon bars and they were delicious...how cool is that guy? Also he quoted "The Big Lebowski" during lunch and couldn't stop giggling about it.
• "Irreplaceable" by Beyonce. I realize it is a lil dumb and she rhymes the word "minute" with, well, "minute", but I love it so.
• The TV show "Sports Night". Have you seen it? You should.

This will have to do for now. Before I sign off, here is a great recipe I tried for super-low-fat pita pizzas. They were DELICIOUS. I recommend dipping them in SOUR CREAM.

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Place pita on cookie sheet and spread store bought pizza sauce on it (I used Contadina...it came in a squeeze bottle!).
3. Top with mozzarella cheese and sprinkle on some Italian seasoning.
4. For toppings, I used low fat turkey pepperoni (which is surprisingly really good) and I sauteed some onions, peppers, mushrooms, and tomatoes in olive oil. YUM.
5. Bake 6-8 minutes.
6. Enjoy!

Love you all!

Who Dat?

Quick update, since I know Amanda and all my other studious best friends need study break distractions (i.e. blog entries) to read and comment on. You are all adorable…it is ridiculous.

This past weekend was fun, although I got sick on Thursday night (of COURSE) so was feeling yucky all weekend. Not to worry, it was just a little cold, but it still kept me from all of my fun outdoorsy plans. Aneil came over (hooray!) and we went to holiday dinner with my coworkers. We actually had a nice time, and ate a super decadent meal…since I was sicky we figured since we weren’t drinking we could splurge on fancy entrees instead (brilliant!). My coworkers are all grownups, but most of them are really cute and fun and friendly so it was a good time. Aneil sat next to the one guy (my coworker’s husband) at the party that could quote Bill Murray movies and/or “Almost Famous” so they did that all night…ha, it was like ope I’ve lost him to “movie quote guy” much in the way I typically lose him to “Golden Tee”. But he was a super-charmer and everyone commented on our cuteness so hurrah.

Saturday my cold was in full effect, so we just watched tv and lounged about all day. He even indulged me and took me to Freebirds, but I could only eat half of my Half Bird, which was pretty pitiful, and further evidence that I was indeed very very sick. Heh. Also, “The Santa Claus Movie” from the 1980’s is NOT as cool as you remember. “Scrooged” is pretty ridiculous. And “The Shop Around the Corner” is more charming than “You’ve Got Mail”. Also my holiday love affair with Jimmy Stewart is in full effect, so I’m thinking about renting more JS movies to warm up for my holiday viewing of “It’s a Wonderful Life”.

Sunday I had to “study” for my Marketing final, so I watched Sunday Night Football while I did that. My dearest New Orleans Saints totally stomped the stupid Dallas Cowboys and I was totally channeling my mom, as I kept yelling at the tv whilst all alone in my apartment. I kept saying things such as “Suck it Tony Romo!” and “Suck it Cowboys!”…who am I? I dunno why, but my family has always haaaated the Cowboys, besides the fact that I am bitter over not being qualified to be a cowboys cheerleader. (Love that show!) Anywho, I think my mom, in one of her famously wacky emails (I swear, her punctuation could make her the new e.e. cummings and/or James Joyce), sums up the Saints win best:

"of course, i watch the game, hollering by myself. the "aints" are awesome and for real this season.not to mention fun to watch. they gave the over rated cowboys a good" whuppin",and showed everyone the new "america's team".talk about knocking down thier shaky pedestal. everyone in the sportsworld picked dallas to win,huh!!showed them. besides, drew brees is my new man,and that reggie bush my new football baby!"

I like that she qualified that Drew Brees is her “man” and Reggie Bush her “baby”…oddly enough I totally agree with that logic!

Not much other news…festivus preparations will be in full effect after my final tomorrow, so I am really excited about that. I can’t WAIT to see everyone. I am already smiling just thinking about it!

Hope everyone has a good studying week!

This week I love: the Saints, Drew Brees, Reggie Bush, Aneil, Oreos, and Jimmy Stewart. This week I hate: the Cowboys, post-nasal drip, studying, and saying goodbye on Sunday.

home of the brave lil toaster

Helloooh my fellow patriots!

I have just returned from our nation’s cap-i-tal. I did not get many pictures, because let’s face it, I am crappy at taking pictures. Luckily my storytelling skills are slightly more advanced, so here we go…

I flew to DC with Amee’s friends, Preya, Rachel and Nisha. We arrived at like, 11pm eastern standard time and we got to see Amee’s cute apartment. It is tiny, but adorably chic and just totally Amee (even smells like her old apt!). It’s in one of those neighborhoods where only young yuppies with BMWs live, but it was real cute. We walked across the street to this bar that was packed with people, and was real loud. Lesson no. 1 about DC: people are rude and are prone to shoving you around. We nearly got knocked out getting off the plane due to crazies shoving themselves down the aisle, and I got tossed about quite a bit at the bar. In their defense, or whatever, most of the people there were drunk out of their gourds (one girl vomited and it almost hit my shoe), but still. Amee’s coworkers were all there (and drunk out of their gourds) but they were all cute white boys and they all adore Amee, so they were charming nonetheless. I decided that the real tall guy was the Jim to her Pam, so I was a lil jealous, as I wish I had a Jim of my own. Oh also, there was this cover band that was full of singers in a House of Pain kind of way, plus drummer, bass, guitar, etc, and they played current songs plus songs that are so last year (Hey Ya), then like, old school hits a la “Push It” and “Summer of 69”. At first I rolled my eyes a lot, but ultimately caved in to their charms (they were actually sort of good!) and bobbed and danced about as best I could whilst not being shoved.

Saturday was shopping extravaganza in Georgetown. I got to cross the Potomac, so I felt very connected to US history and whatnot, then felt connected to current US policy when I shopped till I dropped and deficit spend-ed my way to happiness. There were too many stores to even think about going to each one, and I bought a coat, a blazer, blue ballet flats, 2 lil purses, a tank top, and a skirt that I want to wear to festivus. I gotta say, it was pretty exhausting. I am not very good at shopping without Amee there to tell me what is fashionable and what it is uggo, so I wanted to take full advantage of her skills while I could. But shopping sort of kills me, and as there were no Auntie Anne pretzels in sight, I did not received the required sustenance that I needed to keep my spirits up. Luckily we skipped on the long walk back to the Metro and got a cab back to her place.

Dinner that night was in Chinatown at this Tapas place called Jaleo. It was a cute place, and there was tons of Sangria and whatnot. I got to see Amee’s former coworker Kim, whom I used to hang out with when she lived in Houston. She is real cute and hip and I still love her. I also got to meet her fiancé Tom, who was also real charming and looked a lot like Trey Anastasio, so that was funny. I loved them both because they are totally “my type”, and would totally be best friends in the event that we lived in the same place. I’m pretty sure I charmed my way into an invite to their wedding, so score! Also, Kim’s friend Katie was my dinner date, and I loved her a lot as well. I didn’t get to meet a lot of Amee’s other friends, because we had to split up into 2 tables, so that was a lil dumb, but I got to witness the cake portion of the evening, so yay.

Post-dinner, we tried to go to this club called Indebleu, which ultimately ended up being the equivalent of my personal hell. First, there was this annoying bouncer who claimed it was “guest list only” night, so we stood in this roped off area for alleged losers while these pretentious-looking uggos wearing sunglasses at night and lots of man-jewelry were able to get in. We eventually enter, and the place, as Tom put it, was “packed with assholes”. It was also really loud and smarmy and just so so crowded, you couldn’t even hang out with your friends, really. I was super-irritated, but luckily I think everyone else was too, because we left there after about 30 minutes and headed across town to this other place, where Amee’s friend knew of a brown party at another club. It was a lot more fun, because it was still crowded, but you could actually move around, and the people there didn’t shove as much, so that was a welcome relief. The music was actually real good, and every 8 songs or so they would play Indian “da club” music, and Amee would get really excited and sing along, so it was all worth it. I did miss my own brown boy a lot though, because there were tons of boys there but none of them were him (3 weeks since seeing him and counting). I found one awkward-looking bearded guy with a hoodie on, and pretended that was Aneil and I felt a little better just knowing he was there.

Before we skipped town on Sunday, we went back into the city to eat lunch, sample salty oatmeal cookies at Teaism, and see Dupont Circle in action (kudos to Rachel for quoting “The American President” while we were there). Although there were rude people and whatnot, I liked DC a lot, and it was very cosmopolitan and charming and had great public transportation systems, so I approve. I am also glad Amee fits in so well there and that she has a lot of friends to look after her. Good trip all around.

Sorry Amanda, we didn’t see Abe, but I almost bought a presidential action figure version of him from Skymall for you.

In other news, LSU is going to the Sugar Bowl (think it has something to do with USC losing to UCLA, but I am not caught up on Sportscenter, since I just had the girliest of weekends ever). However, I can easily predict an LSU blowout over Notre Dame (I mean, come on people!).

Also, they are doing the nomination hearing for Robert Gates, the possible new Sec. of Defense. I mean, is it really necessary to poke and prod at the guy just to get him to admit that we are losing in Iraq? If I were him and I got asked whether we were losing in Iraq, I would have responded with an eye roll and a “no doi” and been done with it. I suppose this is why Bush has yet to nominate me for anything.

The whole Russian spy radiation scandal makes me think of Alias, and now I wonder just how much creepy Rimbaldi-esque stuff is going on in the world right now. Also I wonder if there really are spies that look like Jennifer Garner and Michael Vartan (le sigh).

I just bought a new iPod nano (my first iPod!) and I am super excited. I have already started composing playlists for Christmas festivus. "Last Christmas" by Wham!, anyone? Anyone? Get ready to shake those moneymakers!

Anywho, this week I hate: shoving in general, no brown boy visits for 3+ weeks, and not being done with finals yet. Things I hate this week that everyone else seems to love: Laguna Beach, sangria, and cheesecake. And finally, this week I love: independent book stores, rose-flavored soap, Beauty and the Geek reruns on MTV, and beautiful public transportation systems.

define a transparent dream

Sorry no posts. I had a final exam plus have been in Louisiana. But there’s no excuse for letting all you lovers and/or haters down. I sorry.

Instead of trying to chronologically log the last 3 weeks of my life, I will use a Cheers/Jeers system to recount the highlights:

CHEERS to the Ewing family. We don’t hang out as a unit that much anymore, and okay, we had one minor meltdown about 3 hours into LSU-Ole Miss game weekend, but that was probably just re-adjustment to constant togetherness. I would venture to say that we did pretty well with Thanksgiving…lots of turkey, lots of casserole items, lots of football, lots of funsies in general. Highlights are Fro’s final home football game, meeting his new gf and actually being charmed, drinking hurricanes and watching LSU beat Arkansas, 2%-ing my way through the A&M game (i.e. declaring “we will lose we always do”) but then doing a dance of joy when we won, the family movie “Zathura” that we watched as a family, and turkey coma.

JEERS to Gilmore Girls in general. I don’t get it anymore (new writers are poops). It is sort of like I was in love with GG, then we started growing apart, and now it is just trying to be so terrible that I will just go ahead and break up with it myself. Lorelai marries Christopher in Paris? Whaaa? No more witty banter? Seriously, the best pop culture reference we can get is “let’s all wear uggs to our 2002 themed party”? No more “la la la’s”? Why lord why? I am so disheartened by our dying love, and I think that it is appropriate to quote Carole King (who sings the GG theme song FYI) and say: “It’s too late baby, now it’s too late, though we really did try to make it…something inside (i.e. the writing) has died and I can’t hide it I just can’t fake it…no noooo!”

CHEERS to Smart Ones frozen meals for making the most delectable low calorie meal ever, “Santa Fe Style Rice and Beans”, which I have been consuming on an almost daily basis for the past month, and actually reallllly missed for the 4 days I was in Lake Charles eating high-calorie homemade foods.

JEERS to the BCS. Yes, blog fans, I strangely know a large amount about this year’s BCS at-large picks, besides the fact that I actually know the term “BCS at-large”. The other Ewings looooove College Football, and I watched Sportscenter more in the past 2 weekends than in my entire life. Everyone should cross their fingers and hope for LSU in the Rose Bowl (come on people, they are in the top 5 but may not get a BCS bowl?), and make a mean face and direct it toward Notre Dame, who will always and forever get picked because they will draw in more ticket sales (damn that Rudy!).

CHEERS to best friends who attended Benjy’s happy hour. i.e. 2 best brown girls + Kevin. Maria told me that she and Amee marveled at the fact that Kevin managed to incorporate himself into the brown gal bunch. I think it is mostly because he commented that white girls are hard to tell apart, and then let us watch The Bachelor while he did some sort of fantasy football thingy. Also I loved how both Amee and Megha say the letters “O M G” aloud. And the fact that none of us wanted to touch the calamari pieces that looked too octopus-like. Eww. And getting extra drunk and eating cheese-its and watching “The Office” is real great.

JEERS to The Bachelor. I mean, I watched it this season, simply because we always watch it but I dunno if I can do it anymore. Rule of thumb is that anyone with a spark of personality gets eliminated, and if you are bland you may get selected. You also have to refer to the “romantic journey” ad nauseum, and constantly say the phrase “I have strong feelings for you”. Lorenzo, good luck with your bland pretty teacher from Florida.

CHEERS to Aneil, just because I miss him A LOT, and won’t see him until Dec 8th, which will make it nearly a month since last time I saw his furry face. I like this photo of him…he is dressed up as Marty McFly, but just in case no one confused him for Michael J. Fox’s doppelganger, he built a flux capacitor to tote around on Halloween. Also the fact that a flux capacitor, best friend, and Lone Star beer can make him look this happy basically sums up why I love him so. (That and his knowledge of the movie Short Circuit and his sparkle eyes.):
JEERS to studying for your management final only to discover that nothing you have read/memorized for the past week was actually on the ridiculous exam.

CHEERS to seeing Amee this weekend and then seeing 1 million other best friends for Christmas.

kick off your sunday shoes

Hi! I am old now. It's fine. I had a great party though. Many thanks to my #1 best boy, Aneil, for helping make it all happen. Planning a simple bday party is quite the to-do, so I'm pretty sure I will never be able to have a wedding. I will post as many pics as I can (read: as many as I can tolerate due to blogger's charming quirks), then I will provide a flickr link to the rest of them.

First, shout-out to favorite boy! I find him charming and he was instrumental in planning the party. i.e. he made reservations, bought cake, balloons, and picked up the tshirts. So yeah, he did everything. He dotes on me. I dont mind.

Our crowning achievement was the party favor bags in which everyone received an I (heart) Pie tshirt from Boomerangs. Here are some hot girls modelling them:I got 2 yes 2 cakes, one cookie (yum!) and one cookie monster:

Since I had 2 cakes I decided that the candle-blowing effort counted as cardio, so I treated myself to a piece of each kind of cake. (Here's the most cleavage you will ever see on this blog):I received lots of beautiful gifts, and was so super-excited to receive them, as evidenced by this photo:

After the pizza party, we headed to Emo's to see Tilly and the Wall. Surprisingly, Amee (who came all the way from D.C.!) wins the award for most enthusiastic glitter-thrower:I strangely did not get any best-friend photos with Amanda (weeeird!) but I did manage to snap a photo of her, plus Aneil's best friend John, so I guess that will have to do:Okay, I am exhausted from all the picture posting, so I will end with this one...I feel like my gift from Amanda pretty much sums me up:Other photos can be found at flickr (let me know if the link doesn't work!)

After Tilly a bunch of us went to Beauty Bar for dancing and other antics. I think my favorite thing about birthday was that Amee had the most fun of anyone at the rock show, and Amanda had the most fun dancing at da club. Bizarro universe, sure, but fun for everyone!

Thanks again for helping me celebrate!

count your blemishes...you can't, they're all gone

Weekends + rock shows + best friends = happiness!

Friday night I trekked up to Austin for my belated Valentine's Day gift: Built to Spill concert for me plus 3 friends. The 3 I chose were Aneil, Chad, and Amanda. Alex added himself to the mix, and was a welcome addition indeed.

Built to Spill, whom I adore, are pretty awesome in general, but when they "jam" it sort of kills me a little. Hi hello I love pop songs which are typically 4 minutes tops, so the extended jam is a little exhausting. Here's some incessant jamming in action:

Luckily, however, their set was basically a greatest hits collection. Here is a good one of Doug (complete with fluffy beard) playing my favorite, Carry the Zero:

Here I am attempting to casually make a photo in which we look like we're a couple, but due to awkward camera angle my head is larger than his entire body.

Amanda and Alex attempt to pose for multiple cameras paparazzi style:

I love these two:

The cosmos were working in our favor, because multiple best friends appeared later at Club Deville, since Sean's band played a show down the street also! I loooove running into best friends out on the town and it was much fun indeed. Some of Aneil's friends were there too, so it was festive indeed. Here are some cuties:

Neha and Sonal are adorable sisters:

We are not sisters, but apparently are in love with our own, and each other's faces:

These lemon drops were the beginning of the end for Amanda:

I like this boy:

Unfortunately I didn't take any pics at lunch the next day, but it was lovely, as there were meat pies and Sean and Carol and Amanda and Alex and Kat and Such and Chad and Aneil. I had the best time ever! And gorged myself on flaky buttery yumminess.

Aneil and I went on anniversary special date Saturday night. First, he took me to Cavender's Boot City to try on boots:

I liked them but am going to wait before purchasing because as it turns out boots are pricey! But I look sort of adorable I think! We also tried 2 fancy restaurants, but the wait time was ridiculous so we ended up at my fave, Z Tejas, where I ate the richest most delicious fish ever. I washed it all down with rum, so by 10:30 I thought I might pop and/or pass out...oh! the epicurian lifestyle I lead! Extravagant! So instead of a night out on the town with friends or a movie date, I opted to have Aneil take me home so I could change into pajamas and fall asleep during the SNL monologue. Pathetic.

So, good weekend overall. It turns out I love: rock music, best friends, boyfriend, meat pies, cocktails, and overeating. No doi.

In weekday news, I had to come home and cram for my Marketing test but I think I did okay. The rest of the week I will be busy putting together my Management paper. School is exhausting, and apparently studying while simultaneously watching "Scrubs" season 4 works pretty well.

Houston janitors have gone on strike due to the recent formation of a janitor union, so it might start getting stinky in our building. Today the building manager went from bathroom to bathroom to drop off bottles of liquid soap, since there was no one to refill the soap dispensers in the bathrooms. Oy.

I am an idiot and had to call Tivo to make sure I understood how to fast forward/rewind. Apparently when you fast forward it auto rewinds a little to allow for better commercial manuevering. Brilliant, but apparently confusing for little brown girls trying to Tivo "The Bachelor".

Apparently Yellowstone National Park is sitting on top of a potential "mega-volcano" and if it ever erupts it will wipe out all of mankind and restult in an ice age. Ruh roh.

FM radio observations from my trip to Austin:

1) Light rock radio plays entirely too much Faith Hill. Also she sucks. The song "This Kiss" gets worse every time it is played, and could very well cause the Yellowstone mega-volcano to build enough pressure to erupt any day now. Light FM must be stopped! Her other song, "I love the way you love me" or something like that, may even be worse.
2) Celine Dion's Titanic song has not held up very well (i.e. it sucks so so much), despite its Oscar win. Blaugh.
3) The Beach Boys' "Kokomo" is really really awesome. This is true even when considered completely independently from its association with "Cocktail" (although who doesn't love a good Elisabeth Shue movie?) and viewed apart from the Beach Boys' brilliant catalogue. It's just great, great great.

I read a funny article today rating the top hits of 1964 and the writer's review of Doo Wah Diddy is hilarious. Here is a sampling:

As you can see by my dramatic re-creation of Mr. Mann's inner monologue, I am generally underwhelmed by this tune. HOWEVER. Its Wikipedia page does contain what I believe to be the greatest sentence in the history of Wikipedia: ''The song would later achieve worldwide fame when it was performed by Jesse and the Rippers on Full House, sometimes in medley with the Beach Boys' 'Kokomo.'''

As anyone who knows me could attest, I love Full House in a weird way. I'm sure once I figure out the damn Tivo functionality I will start recording reruns off TVLand. I love Uncle Jesse and the Rippers and their belief that a 60's cover band with no original material could maybe just maybe land a record contract with a major label! Love it!

2 ,yes 2, "Kokomo" references in one journal entry! Score!

Happy Day!

1) Jeffrey WINS! Project Runway. I'm going to reference my previous post, and make note that I was completely correct that he did not cheat, but was over-budget and had to lose the wigs. (But wasn't Tim Gunn adorable with all his crying and proud dad behavior?) Also, today I found the dress I purchased last weekend online, and it was part of Shelli Segal's "Rock n' Roll meets Hollywood Glamour" collection, so obviously it makes sense that I love Jeffrey's rock n' roll aesthetic. (Or, "goth", as Michael Kors would say). At any rate, hurrah for Jeffrey. (And for gorgeous Marilinda, the model.)

2) Tivo arrived! I think I have it all hooked up, but apparently it takes some time to set up so I might try it after Top Chef, but I am so excited!

3) Top Chef premiered and the new host is hot and only slightly less robotic, but still an improvement. I like that they specifically noted that Tom Caligula (or whatever his name is) is NOT an avuncular charming Tim Gunn-type mentor, but a mean mean judge. THIS is the reason that Top Chef won't replace Project Runway in my heart in the off-season, but I DO love food, so we'll see how the season turns out.

4) I made a 97 on my Management test! Hooooray!!!!!

5) Apparently I have lost 1 lb this week!

6) I see Amanda and Chad and Aneil in less than 2 days!

7) All 3 of my favorite brown girls are coming to my birthday party next month.

8) I SEE AMANDA CHAD AND ANEIL IN LESS THAN 2 DAYS!

le happy sigh

quick summary

Wilco makes me happy. Excellent show with 2 encores and a happy enthusiastic crowd. Plus Jeff Tweedy is freaking adorable. Plus there was a best friend collision extreme, with Amanda, Alex, and law school pal Amos, plus Aneil and his 2 best friends, Jenny and John. I think the group dynamics were okay though, and everyone had a lot of fun.

After the show, we went to Oak Hills for some post show cocktails and pizza. (visit Amanda's blog for photos and witty commentary)

I hated to say goodbye to such cute kids on Saturday, but luckily I was still able to hang out with Amanda the rest of the day at the fancy mall adjacent to Fiesta Texas. We were shopping for dresses for her to wear to a wedding, but I am the one who ended up buying a dress. Did you know Neiman Marcus only accepts American Express or Neiman Marcus credit? What's with that? Even McDonald's accepts Visa! Whatever. I am now a Neiman Marcus credit account holder...I'm sure that account will see tons of action in the next year, since I love to buy couture and designer brand items. Bleh.

We also drank Godiva Elixir, which was a delicious chocolately treat that you should all try!

In other news, I bought a Tivo! It arrives in 3 days and I can't wait. Obviously now that I am a Neiman Marcus shopper I can afford such extravagance! You can rewind TV! I can record Ugly Betty while I watch The Office! Holy crap! And the countdown to television bliss begins...

Project Runway finale tomorrow...prediction: Jeffrey is not found guilty of cheating, but is over budget and can't use the blonde wigs he planned to use for his models. I love his collection, so I am hoping I am correct and he gets to compete. Also, Amanda and Alex introduced me to Top Chef, which is the equivalent of PR but with food, so luckily I will have something to Tivo until PR comes back for a new season.

I am pretty uninteresting lately, but I'm blaming it on school work and lack of spare time to cultivate my quirks and whatnot. I will try to pick up some slack by visiting darling brown boy and seeing Built to Spill this Friday. Yes, I am going to Austin the weekend before my test. I'm craaazy!

I just got super excited whilst watching "Made" because the geeky girl who was made into a pageant queen got a kiss on the cheek from her crush, the guy who watches Stargate with her. I freaking love this show!

In summary, this week I love: tater tots with What-A-Burger ketchup, the fact that Amanda understands my love for What-A-Burger ketchup, the fact that Aneil doesn't understand my love for What-A-Burger ketchup yet accepts it nonetheless, everyone I saw Wilco with, Wilco, Sushi Zushi, the very thought of Tivo, keeping in touch with old friends, and young love. This week I hate: the very thought of my Management project, my bizarre addiction to Starbucks vanilla lattes, Houston drivers, and the fact that at this moment I'm not eating tater tots with What-A-Burger ketchup.

my ideal evening

So I finished my management exam, which was real long and entirely made up of essays, but I felt good about it (at least I was able to write something for each question), so that's good.

And after a solid week of dieting, exercising, studying, and being hopped up on espresso, I came home, put on pajamas, made cheese toast, and am currently drinking a lone star beer and watching the Project Runway season finale.

All that's missing is a handful of best friends and a cute brown boyfriend, and this could be the best evening of all time.

Hope everyone else is smiling. In 2 days I will be watching Wilco and it will be grand.

and you may tell yourself - this is not my beautiful wife!

Hey beauties.

The past couple of weeks have been significantly less eventful than the previous weeks’ and their constant vacations, but I will do my best to keep it interesting.

The other day I was driving home from work and I stopped at a red light and 2 men crossed the street in front of me. As he was walking, the big guy pulled his shirt up over his belly (I guess he was hot?) and just sort of held it there, belly exposed, and kept on walking. It was so funny...and I had to of course fight the impulse to get out of my car and hug his big ol' belly. That's the thing...I love bellies! My brown boy has a little one and I love it. By definitition I am supposed to hate bellies, since they are unhealthy and I don't want to lose any other loved ones to heart disease, but I can't help loving them! Maybe because my dad had a big furry belly and I loved hugging it too. My best frens may even remember my long ago fascination with "fluffy" boys and my unfortunate experience with one named Will Rogers (never before in the history of the world had a pretty hipster so thrown herself at a chubby OPAS exec). At any rate, I guess I've given up on overall fluff, but I gotta say, it's harder to give up the belly.

Speaking of bellies, check out the cute fluffy snowman/penguin statue I purchased today. When you press the button it sings, and the snowman dances and the penguins jingle bells. Can you believe they are already selling Christmas stuff?


Other things I have been thinking about:

1) How do they make store-bought hamburger buns? If it’s just a whole bun that is cut in half, why are the edges so smooth? Why was there never a Mr. Rogers episode in which he visited his neighborhood large-scale bread manufacturing facility? (oh man, his visit to the crayon factory was awesome)

2) Has anyone (besides me) noticed the amount of sexy that has been brought back lately? I mean, I’ll go ahead and say it, “Justin Timberlake, mission accomplished!” Here is a plot not only of the national average amount of sexy but my own personal sexiness, shown pre-JT and post-JT. (shown as percent sexiness):


Also, (and I don’t think this is a coincidence) the mastermind behind it all is the strangely charming, belly-toting Timbaland, further evidence that bellies are sexy, um back, um sexy/back. (Note the huge % increase in the chart above.)

3) Is it wrong of me to be rooting for evil Jeffrey on Project Runway? I think it’s a combination of the judges comments exasperating me (one week he is awarded for being rock n’ roll, then the following week they say he is too rock n’ roll and needs to tone it down, so the next week when he tones it down, he is berated for not keeping it real). Ugh. Also I’m glad he stuck around so we get one more week of Michael Kors incorrectly referring to his style as “goth”. And let’s face it: given the choice I would obviously opt for Jeffrey or Uli to be my stylists. Also, I think as my love for Tim Gunn grows, Michael Kors is less and less appealing. Sort of like when you have a boyfriend you looove you sort of lose interest in checking out other guys altogether. This is further proof that my love of Tim Gunn is indeed pure and true (love, truuuue love).

4) Why is “Flavor of Love” so appealing? Aneil (who does not have cable) is constantly perplexed about why I would watch such a thing, but when he came over this weekend, he too, was completely hooked. Our genuine excitement that a new episode was coming on was alarming. It’s just laugh aloud funny and perplexing and shocking all at once. And every time he kisses one of his ladies, he exclaims “Flavor Flav!” Why???

In non-pop-culture news, I was 3-for-3 in terms of hanging out with best girl friends last weekend. Amanda was in town for a bridal shower, Maria came over after she left to have dinner with me, then Amee stopped by after visiting her parents! Eeep! I love all of those girls!

Also, brown boy and I made it to our 1st anniversary as a couple. This was met with not much fanfare, as we live in 2 different cities, but there were lots of icky phone calls about love and whatnot. He is great, and I might have completely fallen apart this past year without him so yay brown boy! (Also he is cute, so that’s a relief.)

Thursday I am going to a meeting with my company’s VP of Engineering. We want to tell him we need to spend millions of dollars on compressor components. I really don’t belong in such a high-powered situation, I don’t think. And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?

I have a management test tomorrow so I should get back to learning about motivation theories and whatnot (laaaame). This weekend I am going to San Antonio, where I will see Amanda + Wilco + Brown Boy, so I can’t complain at all! Life is busy but sunny this week, so hurrah!

like throwing a popsicle into a volcano

I survived ACL Festivus 2006! Here is a link to all my pics:

Here's a link to Amanda's pics complete with best fren hanging out photos from Saturday night.

If you want to actually see musician's faces and whatnot, check out Lauren M's photos on her blog. Just goes to show what a press pass, fancy camera, and you know, talent, can do for you.

Anywho, I am slowly recovering from festivus. I'm a lil sunburnt and tired and for whatever reason my eyes are still real red, I'm assuming from some combo of allergies and sweat/sunscreen in the eyes all weekend. I started with a very ambitious lineup, but the crowds + heat made it sort of unrealistic. Here's what I saw:

Friday:
Guster (saw first half...sweated out my entire 32 oz. iced tea)
Wolf Parade (so so awesome and rockin...i love Canada!)
Gnarls Barkley (we were real far away, so the sound was pretty sucky, but they were pretty good)
Cat Power (loved her hotness combined with sultry voice and extreme awkwardness. also loved her backup singers and wished i had backup singers)
Ray Lamontagne (hot anglo-Jesus-looking singer songwriter...real talented and hottt)
Van Morrison (sound + crowd rudeness made this sucky)
John Mayer (heard the end of his set while at the Waterloo hut...pretty rockin guitar playing, but then he encored with his radio hit, so that was sort of grating)

Saturday:
Centro-matic (played my favorite song "Love Has Found Me Somehow"!)
Ghostland Observatory (Kenny thought it was a woman, but pretty sure singer was a very agile dude)
Ben Kweller (poor darlin got a double nose bleed and couldn't finish his set...ended with a pretty good tune though)
Secret Machines (I don't remember it was so hot at this point that's all i could focus on)
The Shins (pretty eh show due to sound quality...indie pop doesn't hold up too well on big festivus stages, I suppose)
Calexico (tried to will them to play Alone Again Or, but to no avail)
Explosions in the Sky (pretty fantastic and delightfully LOUD)
Willie Nelson (greatest hits galore, although sound quality sucked (again) love that guy, though

Sunday:
(Slow start on Sunday, and instead of moving around, just watched a couple of shows in their entirety due to sheer exhaustion.)
White Ghost Shivers (wacky vaudeville-esque Austin band...real talent + baudy humor)
Flaming Lips (we got pretty close and it was goofy fun times indeed complete with inflatable human bubble, go-go dancer alien chicks, a choir of santa clauses, large alien and spaceman dancing balloons, fake blood, confetti guns, super hero guitar techs, and hit singles)
Tom Petty (started raining real hard in the middle of his set...plus there were so many people it was hard to hear from as far back as we were, but we did hear some greatest hits.)

All in all a very fun weekend indeed. Amanda, Alex, and Erik made it to the festivus, plus we got to hang out with Kat and Such on saturday night. Also, plenty of Aneil's friends made cameos. It was real great. Although the heat was still pretty intense, although an improvement over last year. I wished I could've seen more shows, but there were just too many people so it was slow going between stages. Doh. Also why oh why was Stars playing while Wolf Parade played? Doh again.

And I feel it necessary to mention the delicious meat pies and sweet tea. Mmmm.

So, this year's festivus was a success indeed. Although I am exhausted due to a trip to Corpus for a meeting on Monday. (8 hrs of driving isn't the best way to top off a festivus weekend.) My Marketing test is done and done, so hopefully the rest of this week won't be too bad.

So, this week I love: best friend reunions, rocking, rolling, and meat pies. I hate: the fact that I watched "Center Stage" while I could've been studying last night, lack of a new Project Runway this Wed, my ridiculously overactive sweat glands, people who litter, and the crappy customer service at the Watermark hotel in San Antonio.

ain't no mountain high enough

I’m back down to sea level and have had a hectic work-school-birfday-project runway filled week, so this is my first chance to post.

Colorado (specifically Estes Park) was pretty fabulous looking. Like, if Houston is the awkward somewhat smelly guy in your homeroom that you think is nice, but ultimately hope to avoid, Estes Park is the great looking jock with big muscles who is surprisingly nice to everyone. For example, here is the view from the house where we stayed:

The mountains are just THERE, like, just so brazen and THERE. Purple mountain majesty, right there in your face. They are gorgeous and make you feel really really small. Also they air is noticeably cleaner, and lacking in those charming evil particulates I am used to inhaling every day. Although when hiking up small hills I would get winded. Apparently I am an oxygen pig.

The first day there, me + Kim + Dona + Val went to town for burgers and cookies and shopping galore. As a nod to Angela’s “auf”-ing on Project Runway, I let the “crazy necktie lady” at the craft fair dress me up in crafsty couture made exclusively with neckties fashioned into rosettes. I actually look sort of cute, I think. Of course I purchased the hat, although I have absolutely nowhere to wear it. Hmm.

Next day we actually hiked about the national park. It was a lil exhausting, but super fun and really pretty. I kind of got carried away taking pictures, but I couldn't help it. Here are my girls in front of the waterfall we found:

That's Dona (former boss), Kim (engineering guru), and Val (super cool animal loving role model).

I also was real enamored by the elk. If you would like to view my 5 million photos of elk, I will be happy to send them to you. Apparently it is elk mating season, so they were out and about. Here are 2 fellas fighting over a girl, or something:

I also fell in love with these Aspen trees, because their leaves sparkle in the wind/sun. Here I am making myself at home with a clump of them:

So the trip was a success! And I returned for a couple of days only to leave again on Friday for mom's birthday in Lake Charles. We had much fun, with pistolettes, and redneck karaoke, and mom's spectacular roast beef, and birfday cake and best frens. Much fun indeed.

And after another crazy work/school week, I am headed out tomorrow for ACL festivus. If you are in Austin, we must hang out. I can't wait!

In summary, this week I hate: the (non-walk-in) closet-like size of my new cubicle, the fact that I watched a "Flavor of Love" marathon, and my upcoming Marketing midterm. This week I love: Jif peanut butter, the American version of The Office, soap that smells like apples, and crawfish pistolettes.

Gotta go (re)pack. Lub to all!

and the dish ran away with the spoon

Very good week so far. Friday my dearest brown boy managed to hitch a ride with his friend to Houston, so that meant special date for Shelley! We went to one of our favorites, Maggiano’s, to giggle over the song selections of the resident piano crooner (who else would follow up Frank Sinatra’s “New York New York” with Cameo’s “Word Up”?), and eat mountains of Caesar salad and spaghetti (meat sauce AND meatballs…i.e. Amanda style). An aside: Amanda, someday you should try meat sauce + meatballs PLUS marinara for an extra treat…I will take you to Maggiano’s on a special date next time you are in town.

Anywho, we also went to House of Pies and Aneil won me this supersweet toy out of the claw machine:

It is a flying cow and I’ve named it Julio.

On Saturday we trekked to College Station for Maria’s marathon birthday celebration. I’ve already teased her for having a birthday lunch instead of dinner, since we ended up hanging out at her parent’s house and eating their food allll day. This had it’s perks, however, because there was a large game of Cranium, hanging out with Maria’s nephew Thomas, and a real competitive Jenga tourney. That night I drank 2 chuggers + a pint I think + 1 shot so I was pretty much a goner. That is A LOT of beer. I also ate glorious glorious cheese fries from Fitzwilly’s and attempted to drunkedly play shuffleboard. It was fun but the following changes to College Station were extremely disturbing:

1) Thai Taste closed down!!!!!!
2) Nipa “Hot” closed down!!!!!!!
3) There are about a million new restaurants (TGI Fridays and the like) along the previously barren portion of University Drive
4) Duddley’s has been renovated such that
a. The bar has a backlit fancy liquor display. Yes, liquor. At Duddley’s.
b. The Ms. Pac Man table is GONE
c. The booths have been upgraded.
d. They have added a damn Golden Tee machine…I realized this when Aneil and Casey simply never returned to our table after they went to get drinks from the bar.

I did not get to go to Los Nortenos, so that was disappointing, but I DID get to see my darling Chad and he was pretty and wonderful as usual.

Sunday I was feeling pretty ooky from all the beer and/or sleeping on the floor and/or waking up toooo early, but once I ate my leftover mountain of spaghetti I felt better. Maria and I even had an Emmy viewing party, although I realized that I really don’t watch any of the shows up for awards. It was pretty pathetic. Conan, however, was very funny (as expected). Oh also the one show I actually watch (Project Runway) lost to The Amazing Race, of all things! Pretty disappointing. Also did any of you watch the red carpet pre-show?? The hosts were so freaking awkward and asked the celebs the most inane/insulting questions ever. The weird little dude would ask people about Tom Cruise’s mystery kid and/or say things like, yeah too bad your show was cancelled, hope you win anyway. So so soo awkward.

In other news, I am already way behind in school, but I’ve managed to memorize the four P’s of marketing so hopefully I’ll make Erik proud. This weekend I head to Colorado for my girls’ weekend with my old coworkers from the plant. Apparently the highs are in the lower 70’s and the lows in the mid 40’s so I can’t wait. (No excessive sweating for 3 whole days!)

Lub you all!

you've got soul you've got class...

Hello beauties.

I am back to life back to reality after our fancy "no, really, believe us, we're upper class" spa weekend. I've decided that a) it is always better to stay in a fancy hotel, b) spas are sort of funny because everyone is naked underneath their plush bathrobes, c) you can never drink too much fancy lemon water, and d) room service is the best thing ever.

Mom and I made it to San Antonio and immediately received fancy 1.5 hour pedicures. As it turns out, I loooove pedicures. They do this thing where they put your foot in a bootie filled with warm wax and it is glorious. This is what $100 feet look like:

Shelley

Mom

I figure at $10 per toe, it is worth it. If you factor in the work done on your calves/heels, it is actually only like, $6 per toe, thus basically CHEAP.

Also at fancy hotels there is pointless "turndown" service and while you are getting a pedicure, someone comes and leaves you snacks in your room. Mom enjoys the fancy sugary pecans:

Later at the hotel restaurant, Mom goes on and on to the manager about how she looooved those pecans, so when we got back to our room, there was a gigantic bowl filled with pecans awaiting us:

The next day were our fancy massages and facials. I mean, I guess the massage was okay, but sort of awkward. I liked the facial a lot though. And it was funny, because on your way out of the treatment room you always received a glass of lemony water and grapes. So luxurious. We also would hang out in the "relaxation room" and eat fruits whilst lounging on chaise lounges. Ridiculous but great.

After a long day of exploring and shopping, we met up with my Amanda for dinner. She was pretty and stylish as usual:

So it turned out to be a fun weekend, and we are planning on making it an annual event.

Since then I started school...Marketing and Management. If anyone has any brilliant ideas for an innovative new (fictional) product that I can market for my project, that would be great. I am not creative...helloooo I'm an engineer.

Project Runway was so-so this week. The designers had to make outfits for "real women", namely their mothers and sisters. The twist, I guess, was that they couldn't design for their own mom, but someone else's. More enlightening than the show itself was Tim Gunn's blog, in which he agreed with me that Uli's design was the best, although I was amazed at the normal-ness of Vincent. Except of course when he declared that he was inspired because Uli's mom has "this European air about her". Yes Vincent, it's because she is FROM Europe. Oy. Currently thinking Michael, Uli, and Vincent are headed for the top 3. Yes, I said Vincent...there is always a wild card thrown in...remember Wendy Pepper (season 1) and Santino (season 2)?

This weekend is Maria's birfday festivus in College Station. CHUGGERS! CHAD! CHEESE ENCHILADAS!

Okay, that's it for now. I found a bunch of photos on my camera I never posted, so expect some photo-journal-ing soon.

Lub-dub.

there is no growing in knowing where you're going

Hello! I have a lot of exciting and thought-provoking topics to discuss today, but first and foremost, I have to talk about the supersweet care package I received in the mail today from my darling tall brown girl! I was finally able to make it to the apartment office before closing time, and retreived my PURSE and my strange lil Barbie notebook. The notebook strangely says:

"Sweat is the sweet des moistening the soul:hands are the wing with which ideals soa into great heights."

I don't understand it at all, but I love it and its sentiment about sweat, since I'm officially the sweatiest woman on earth.

Here is the fancy purse: I looove it because it is dainty and charming, yet surpisingly sturdy (excellent yarn choice!). I imagine Amanda probably was able to crochet it with her eyes closed and/or whilst watching tv, thus making it even more impressive. Now I know that if we ever really did live in a best friends commune, we can rest assured we would be clothed and/or accessorized as long as Amanda is around.

In other news, I feel it's time for my weekly Project Runway update (since the new episode airs tomorrow). Last week, in an attempt to substantiate the claim that "models, this is a competition for you too", the models got to display some personality and choose their designers and, in a surprising twist, choose the "fashion icon" their designer would be designing for.

They even interviewed a couple of the models, actually giving them names and whatnot! Also one model was revealed to be real chatty and annoying...I mean, she annoyed her designer, and he's used to being around pageant queens, so that can't be a good sign! In the end, Michael won, since apparently hot pants are "in", as evidenced by a) Michael's win and b) our observation of lots of hot pants at Cafe Adobe a couple of weeks ago. Here's the winning Foxy Brown-inspired creation:

In other random news, I noticed something odd/interesting a couple of weeks ago. I travelled to one of our manufacturing plants for a meeting, but none of the participants were to be found, so me and the 2 other downtown people wandered up to the engineering floor to see if anyone was around (in their defense, it was 4pm on a Friday). I noticed that this guy who I worked with for a couple of months during a turnaround had an office there...we only worked together for 2 months, and that was over 2 years ago, so needless to say we are friendly but not best friends or anything. Anyway, I stopped by to say hello and noticed that sitting on his desk right next to his computer was the turnaround mega-mix cd I made him 2 years ago! I didn't mention it or anything, and barely even noticed, but as I was driving home, I got to thinking, wow, this person whom I barely even know is still listening to a mix cd I made over 2 years ago! It wasn't weird, just sort of flattering and further proof that I make freaking awesome mix cds. It's strange to know you have some sort of (albeit minor and trivial) impact on random peoples' lives all the time.

As we all know from watching/memorizing High Fidelity, the making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don't wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules.

On the subject of pop music (one of my favorite things) cheers this week to Christina Aguilera, whose new single is sort of great. I still sometimes find her vocal chromatic scale jibber jabber sort of grating, but her new song is pretty damn interesting. Kudos! Also, although I don't really understand his hot-guy appeal, Justin Timberlake deserves some praise for his latest single too. I can't even tell if I like it or not, but it is different and interesting to the ears, so thank goodness for that. Listen to that right after Nick Lachey's cornball ballad, and you will understand what I mean. So, well done former Mouseketeers. Jeers to Jessica Simpson who managed to rip off "Holiday" and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" in one song. Good grief, when will the public finally get bored of her again?

Last weekend I visited Aneil's brand new Round Rock Premium Outlet Mall. It was gorgeous and I was gushing with pride because he worked so hard for the city to get it built. We walked through the whole thing, and I bought various and sundry designer items (including a Michael Kors skirt that I intend to wear whilst watching PR tomorrow). So if you are in Austin, make a trip out there and spend some dollars in Round Rock so my Aneil gets a bigger bonus this year.

I parted my hair on the other side last week, and everyone now thinks I got a haircut and/or look great. It's weird. My hair, however, is revolting and continuously tried to revert to the old part, so I keep mashing my hair against my head. I hope to win the battle.

I saw Adrienne today, so that was a treat. She is real pretty and great and was a good roomie for me, since she is the Bert to my Ernie. Also she talks to me about engineering projects, which not many other people do, since no one understands my job. Ah well.

I am really loving the latest book I am reading "The History of Love". Aneil claims that he has turned me into a "romantic" but I'm not sure that this is true. However, it is a relief to enjoy a book so thoroughly after reading a series of duds. "The Kite Runner" was okay but the writing was real sparse and of course, there were the nightmares I had about war. I like this current book, because every so often there's just a really great passage, and it makes me smile or yearn or FEEL something at any rate. Aneil critiques books based on the number of really great sentences that he reads in them, and I have decided to adopt this rating system as well. Lots of good sentences so far. I will chart it all up for you in Excel when I have a chance.

Spa retreat this weekend...that means Mom + Pedicure + Best Friend hanging out! I am so excited. 2 more days!

In summary, this week I love: former mouseketeers and their pop music innovation, blueberry instant oatmeal, red delicious apples, Dawson's Creek marathon on Noggin, and well crafted sentences. I do not love: the crappy stretch of highway between Austin and Giddings, the fact that Lifetime has replaced my 5-6pm Golden Girls with episodes of Reba, and the instability of the ethylene market.

make it work!

About time for a posty-post. Thanks for all your babe-I-love-you-so-please-don’t-go comments from previous entry. My blog self esteem is renewed, and I feel rejuvenated and prepared to “carry on”.

This has actually been a pretty good week. Last weekend my darling brown boy made a special guest appearance. We went out 2 nights in a row! This is quite a feat for us, and I think qualifies us for at least 2-3 hermit-like weekends. At any rate, we ate dinner with my lovely former coworkers from the plant. Not my grownup-in-their-30’s coworkers, but the ones that are actually my age. (My collection of friends is so varied and eclectic, sometimes it boggles the mind.) I was real excited that my pal from A&M, Ben, was there too, as I miss him and his charming cynicism. Oh the joys of the chemical plant! We also feasted a-plenty on fajitas…my first fajita experience at Pappasito’s. I had never really cared for the place but now Aneil and I are in love with the fajitas (that come with an inexplicable yet surprisingly delicio-so side of drawn butter! On chicken/beef! Ooooh how my tummy smiled!). We also played pool, and I feel as though my I-can’t-play-this-game mental block has disappeared, because I was suddenly not-sucky at it. Oh also, the pool hall (in beautiful Clear Lake) was really ghetto, sort of in a high school JD/Lake Charles non-threatening way. A window was broken…a fight broke out in the parking lot…the bartender had a Vanilla Ice haircut…but it was all sort of charming in a strange way. We also found ourselves in Midtown/River Oaks later that night to meet up with other engineering pal, Rob (reference my T/A super post dated sometime in October). Hard to believe we lasted till 2am! Ooooh and then Sat night was Thai feaaaast with Maria & Casey. Yummie. Also tons of drinky drinks at The Kelvin Arms (pub that Erik likes). We discovered a Ms. Pac-Man table!!! And then our boys abandoned us for Golden Tee Golf for the rest of the night. Oh well.

Only 1 more week of this MIS class (praise be!). I can’t wait until it’s over!!! Although I have enjoyed my study team in this class, as they are all older than me and therefore cynical and funny. At any rate, no more classes, just 1 presentation and the final exam. Thank Goodness!

I got a promotion at work! I will now be an Engineer II (oooooh!). Apparently I am worth far more money than one would think. It’s pretty damn ridiculous. On Wednesday I booked me and my mom for $100 pedicures…extravagant!...to celebrate. Oh my God, am I a yuppie?

This week was the big Project Runway “someone will be disqualified” episode. I gotta say, I was expecting a lot more catty drama, but it was overall pretty anti-climactic. Keith, the arrogant judges’ favorite, apparently was in possession of fashion how-to books, which apparently are illegal. Kayne, the pageant dress designer ratted him out to producers. Overall pretty lame. Although, Tim Gunn did mention that he snuck out of the apartment one time, and another time was caught using the internet…probably some much juicier stories there, but no details were mentioned. So goodbye Keith, I will miss your delightful bitchiness and the amazing hatred you inspired from Mom-bot. At any rate, one of the sort of boring designers got the boot for making a sort of boring outfit in a sort of boring fashion show. (And where oh where is Michael Kors???) The producers definitely should have dragged out the Keith drama more. Luckily Angela is still around to be all kooky and weird with her craftsy couture and Vincent is still around, and constantly on the verge of a meltdown…all delicious tv. Plus, I giggle pretty much every time Tim makes a speech…and his blog is probably a little better than the show.

Okay, and I am hesitant to be so forward-thinking and live only for my future plans (as opposed to living in the moment, I guess) but I just can’t help it! Here’s why:

1) Ameeeeee is in Houston and I will be seeing her tonight! Oh there will be joyfully large helpings of tex-mex and girl chat.

2) Next weekend I get to see brown boy + get a much needed haircut + get to see the fabulous new preeemium outlet mall in Round Rock that Aneil has been working on for several months…I’m so excited, and I fully intend to purchase something at the Michael Kors store and the Coach store! (Oh my God, I AM a yuppie!)

3) The following weekend, mom and I are taking a luxurious spa retreat weekend in San Antonio! That means posh hotel, riverwalk, facials and pedicures and massages, even more tex-mex, and AMANDA!

4) The following weekend is Maria’s Northgate birthday fest. Oh the chuggers! Oh the Ms. Pac-Man! Oh the Aggie excitement!

5) The following weekend is my first-ever trip to Colorado, with my grown-up former plant coworkers. It will be a girls’ retreat and I am hoping to hike, drink a lot of gin/light beer, and read a novel if I can fit it in.

6) Then 2 weeks later is ACL festivus! Friday’s lineup is just too too much for me to handle and I will have to miss out on some top notch acts due to double booking. Doh. Plus lots n’ lots of best friends will be in attendance. I cannot wait!

Okay, so all in all things are moving along pretty well. I really just think I am “so over” my computer class and am flush with the end-is-near excitement. I finished “The Kite Runner”. It was pretty good for the first 1/3, but basically faded into sentimental say whaaat? by the end. (Felt like my 10th grade “Grapes of Wrath” what-the-hell-is-that-ending-about? experience.) Just started “The History of Love” by Nicole Krauss. Anyone read it?

Anywhooo, I miss everyone a lot, and don’t talk to you nearly enough. Let’s chat/hang out soon.