Love these guys!

Friday was a crappy day.  Like. . . CRAP.PY.  It was the kind of day that made me want to stay home, drink a bottle of wine, cry, and sink into a nice, deep depression.

I had big plans Friday night, and Friday day was so bad, I almost cancelled my Friday night plans.  But, then I recognized that if I did cancel my Friday night plans, I’d just feel worse over the guilt of letting friends down.  So, I sucked it up, forced myself into a tolerable mood, smashed my body into the ridiculous outfit I had spent entirely too much time searching for, and headed out to meet a friend at the corner of 6th & Congress.

5 minutes into our random walk to find somewhere to have dinner, I was already glad I’d ventured out. 

3 hours into the night, I was laughing and dancing and really loving the company I was in.

7 hours in, I was tearing up the dance floor of a bar that had been closed for 2 hours and loving the fact that the three of us were still having such a ridiculously fun time even though there were only three of us left.

9 hours in, I was sitting in a hot tub, having very serious discussions about happiness and life changes and love, and recognizing that I’m easily one of the luckiest people alive.

By morning, as I pulled my disgusting, hot tub assaulted hair into a messy bun, exchanged a flurry of texts, and headed to breakfast with the boys, I was in an entirely different frame of mind.  Life is fantastic.  And, I am so blessed.

I have so many amazing friends.  Just when I feel like my circle of friends could not be any more phenomenal, I meet someone new who fits in so perfectly and makes me feel at home in this city. 

Friday night, I was entertained by two such people.  I’ve known these guys for a few months, but feel like I’ve known them for years.  As I sat in the hot tub, wondering how anyone convinced me to get into a boiling germ festival, I realized that I have it good.  To have the kind of friends that will drive your sorry drunk ass home at 4am, sit and talk for another couple of hours, put you to bed, let you sleep in, and then take you to breakfast totally pretending that you don’t look like complete ass. . . well, I think that’s what life is all about.  When those friends are straight men, it pretty much calls into question everything I’ve ever believed about the world.  I am a lucky girl.

I love my friends.  And, for being the best friends in the world when I needed it most, I love these guys.

Other Friday photos are only slightly more flattering. . .

Love this city.  Love my friends.  LOVE THESE GUYS!

Austin Traffic Sucks

Today, we had these really cool plans to head on downtown for Eeyore’s birthday.  Me, 3 kids, lots of patience, all packed up ready to go.

Then we drove downtown and started looking for parking.  HA!  HA HA HA!  We’re so funny.  There’s no parking.  Duh!

We drove around for an hour before I finally explained the situation to the kids, who were starving practically to death, and offered them the option of driving around looking for parking or going downtown for dinner and taking a walking tour of downtown afterwards.

Very, very much to my complete surprise, all three children voted dinner and walking tour over Eeyore’s birthday.  Who ever would’ve imagined?!

I expected dinner and walking to totally suck.  We had the best time ever.  It wound up turning into a photo shoot. . . and holy crap, the good times we had. 

 

YE Games Photos

Weekend in review

The kids and I spent Friday at the beach and it was possibly the. most. fantastic. time. ever.  We spent 7 hours in the car to spend 3 hours on the beach and I didn’t strangle any of them.  I can hear your applause, Internet, and I thank you.

The crappiest part of the day was when my camera battery bit it.  Before I took any pictures.  Thank goodness for my trusty Samsung camera phone!

The objective of the day was to get some sun because I’m vain.

I thought, as I wrapped the towel around me to keep from freezing to death, that I wasn’t getting any sun and the trip had been an awfully silly way to spend the day.  But, then we stopped to pee at a Taco Bell and I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and realized that I fried the shit out of my back.  SCORE!

I should have been completely worthless by the end of this trip, but I somehow managed to drag myself out downtown after I dropped the kids off. 

Here’s the thing about meeting friends out at midnight when you’re completely sober and they’ve been drinking for 4 hours:  they’re jerks. 

I don’t know how I wound up out until 5am when the people I went to see bailed sometime around 1am, but I did.  And, I laughed so hard for 2 solid hours that I thought my face was going to stick that way. 

I should have stayed in Saturday night to catch up on the sleep I missed Friday night.

Oh, but I didn’t.  And, my entire body hates me for it today. 

In what has become  pretty common practice, I met friends at The Parish.  White Ghost Shivers played, and we were so gleefully joined by my favorite dance partner ever in the history of the world.  We spun and dipped and twirled and tore that dance floor up.  It was so much fun, I could barely breathe. 

My feet are swollen and it feels like I have a broken toe and I can’t turn my head more than 15 degrees in either direction and my shoulders are sore and I have bruises everywhere.

But, I couldn’t have asked for a better time or for better company.  My favorites ever are the people who have all of the dirt on me and don’t think a thing of it. . .and will dance all night long.

I love my life.   (And White Ghost Shivers.  And The Parish.)

Swimmin’ Fishy!

This really has disintegrated into some crappy blog about my kids.  For that, I apologize.  I actually am still doing all sorts of fun, stupid things. . . I just don’t have time to write about it in any amusing fashion.

So, I took the kids to the pool Saturday.  Here’s video to prove it.  If you haven’t heard my voice before, I apologize for the obnoxiousness of it.

What you’re not seeing is the part where a bee attacked me and made me jump around, screaming and flailing. . . and throw the camera across the pool onto the hard concrete that scratched it’s beautiful shiney gloss.  I guess the saving grace is that it didn’t land in the pool.  But still.  The kids really enjoyed that part.  I could tell by all of the laughing.

He is not a nugget.

Can I just tell you how much I love Roux?  Go there.  Eat.  Drink.  Be merry.  Tell them I sent you.  Eat more.  Drink more.  Be merrier. 

Our own personal security for the night out and girls who honestly believe it. . . hilarious!

Babysitter who didn’t bitch about us being late . . . awesome!

YE discussion forum tonight . . . wild success. 

In between YE discussion and Roux. . . a non-nugget. 

I love this city.

The end.

Photo Update

I’ve been really lazy about photos and blogs lately.  Well, if you consider working full-time,  co-Presidenting a young professional organization, raising 2 children by myself, and pretty much kicking ass every minute of every day lazy, I guess.  And, if you do, we’re not friends anymore.

Back in the day, I had all sorts of time to tell you about all of my wonderful adventures.  Now, I barely have time to sleep, so things like photo uploading and blogging are pretty low priority.  I really value my sleep.

Plus, I packed on a few pounds during my little “Welcome to instant motherhood!” hiatus.  Not as many pounds as I would have gained if I’d have gone ahead and grown the kids in my own belly, but still.  I’m not too stoked about sharing my fatness with the internet.

BUT!  I’ve now lost a few pounds and am pretty much ruling the world with some P90X, so my self image is back in tact and I’m happy to share fat photos with you.  Lucky you!

Now is a really good time to mention that I am possibly the most fortunate single mom in the entire world because I have a former business partner who is also a single mom and we have a very, very, very fantastic arrangement worked out wherein we alternate kid weekends.  So, I am kid-free every other weekend. . . and I swear to God, that is what has saved all of us from insanity.

So, when you see photos of me acting like a complete fucking ass and/or hear stories about me acting like a complete fucking ass, you can rightly assume that the kids were safely tucked in bed being supervised by a responsible party.

Unless the photos are of both of us acting like complete fucking asses, then you can assume we shared a sitter and had a VERY GOOD TIME OUT.  Or that we locked the kids in a cage and left them in the alley behind the bar while we drank.  You know, whatever.

Anyway.  Here are some photos. 

These are from the 20s themed event that my mom was here for.  Except, I look like exceptional ass in all of the photos with Mom, so I’m not posting any of them.   I look like partial ass in these photos, and that’s as far as I’m willing to go.

These are from the BBBS Bowl for Kids’ Sake that none of you donated to, jerks.  We were all 80s, all night, and you know how I love that.

We took the kids to the Oasis over my birthday weekend (wasn’t it BEAUTIFUL for late January?).

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lot to do before I start drinking.

Beauty

It’s true, the traffic in Austin sucks beyond anything you can imagine.  But, it has it’s redeaming qualities, which is why so many people stop as they’re passing through and never leave.

This is my view while I’m stuck in my evening traffic.  It could definitely be worse.

I love it here.

Further proof

In case you haven’t been following along, I reside (happily) in Austin, TX.  Most of my family resides in Indiana.  Now.  The reasonably sane person would pressume that in the instance I may need to get to Indiana to spend the holidays with family, I would find a large, speedy aircraft of some sort to carry us there.

Not me!  Nooooooo.  I decide it’s the perfect opportunity to hop in the car (a 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse, FYI) and ROAD TRIP!  So, picture this.  Me, 2 kids, 2 dogs, all of our crap, and Christmas gifts all crammed into my minature car. 

Mapquest told me it would take 18 hours to make the drive.  Mapquest is a filthy, dirty liar. 

We spent 24 solid hours on the road on our way to Indiana.  TWENTY. FOUR. HOURS.  Straight through.  It was raining the entire time and I had no cell signal for the vast majority of the trip.  It was so. friggin. awesome I almost poked my own eyes out.

Hey, but we survived!

The drive back was much better.  It took only 20 hours, we got lost in Arkansas in the middle of the night, conveniently lost cell signal for most of Arkansas, and spent a good 2 hours praying we’d find our way out of the woods.  I was mildly terrified when all I saw for miles was forest and highway.  No signs, no other cars.  Only slightly reminiscent of every serial murder story I’ve ever heard.

Anyway. . . the point is, I’m clearly insane, and here are some photos from our journey.

Everything was just fine.  Or, at least that’s what I tell myself every 4 seconds of every minute of every hour of my life.

Excuse

Most of you seem to think the reason I haven’t been blogging is that I’m too busy what with all of the recent changes and all.  Or. . . that I don’t have internet at home.  Or. . . that I hate you.

While the lack of internet at home, and my pure hatred for every single one of you are certainly factors in the lack of blogging, those aren’t exactly the reason why I’ve been away so long.

The reality is that I, for the first time in my life, am in a position where I can’t be all “my life is an open book”.  And, let me tell you what, Internet, it is hard!  I’m used to freely spilling my guts about everything to everyone. 

Lucky for you, I should soon be relieved of this inconvenience.  There will still be some minor changes (like, I can’t just tell you where I’ll be at any given time and invite you to come along because there are some people who just don’t need to know where to find me).  But, for the most part, well, with the exception of my life being ENTIRELY different from the last time you heard from me, this blog will resume it’s regularly scheduled sarcasm filled schedule. 

For now, enjoy, several decades late, the photos from my skydiving adventure.  I love you, Internet.

Necessary blogging

If you guys had any idea how much blogging I have to catch up on.  I have so many wonderful stories and photos and overall good times to share.  No internet at home seriously blows donkeys.  I’ve been 2 months without internet at home, and I’m pretty sure it’s killing me very slowly and very painfully.

I had to sneak on today to share this, however. . . because truthfully, how often do you just run into Jack?

The Hoosier State

On the day that I had my stupid dentist appointment, I was really ready to bitch to you all about it. But, now that it’s been weeks and weeks, it doesn’t seem as necessary anymore. So, I’ll just tell you that I went to the dentist for a cleaning, for which I made an appointment. . . and then I had my x-rays and waited and waited and waited until they told me that the hygienist was too busy and wouldn’t be able to clean my teeth that day. I was pretty irritated.

Next topic: Indiana!

So. . . I made my way to Indiana late in August, and it was THE best kind of trip ever in the whole world because it was a surprise trip. It was a surprise to my favorite friend from my crappiest job ever, and it was a surprise to Miss Fred and her brother. Surprises! Surprises! Wheeeeee!

I’m pretty sure my friend has the best husband in the history of the world. He coordinated this super secret surprise just to brighten her day. They were having a party at their place, and he figured it would be a good time to just have me randomly show up. And, so I did. And, it was fun. It was fun when she said, “What are you doing here?!”. He he he he. I like to be a surprise.

It wasn’t as fun when she ran over the cat with the Gator while she drove me all over their gigantic new property. But, except for that, it was fun.

Oooh, but the fun started well before then. You see, when you’re a surprise, things get complicated. There were storms in Chicago the night I flew in. Which is all fine and dandy, except I had a stop in Chicago before I got to Indianapolis. And, Chicago went ahead and made us sit on a plane for 732 hours, and then decided we weren’t going anywhere else.

I followed about 9,026,712 people to the customer service counter to attempt to rectify the situation and find a place to stay for the night. HA HA HA! Funny story. There wasn’t anywhere left to stay by the time I got to the friendly airline representative. And, American Airlines cares so much about their clientelle that they basically told me to shove it up my ass and sent me packing.

I slept on the floor of the Chicago airport that night. And, let me just tell you, it’s not quite as glamourous as you might think. In fact, it’s wickedly uncomfortable, and a little scary.

The most sucky part, though, is that there are several people who would have driven to Chicago to pick me up to save me from sleeping on the stupid airport floor. . . but that would have ruined the surprises, so I couldn’t call and ask them to do that.

Luckily, I met a sweet 17 year old girl who was flying by herself for the first time, and she, too, was screwed, and a little intimidated by the whole sleeping at the airport concept. So, we stuck together, which made it mildly more tolerable. But, more importantly, gave me a photographer.

In honesty, I was happy to spend that extremely uncomfortable, slightly scarey night on the airport floor because seeing a good friend and spending time with the kids was worth every miserable toss and turn. No really, it was.