Where have all the dinosaurs gone??

There are things in life that I love and things that I most certainly do NOT love.
And the list changes quite frequently.
Here are today's:

Thing that I love:
1. Cheetos
2. Busy, but not stressful, work days
3. New restaurants
4. When things work out
5. Salty foods, in general.

Things that I most certainly do NOT love:
1. Random senseless chatter
2. Airlines that are not helpful and won't let me use my miles
3. Bi-polar landlords
4. General stress about stupid things
5. Messy, cluttery work-space


Anyway........
Todd and I have somehow managed to work our vacations and holidays out so that we're only working a full week every other week until after July 4th. How that happened, I have no idea. It wasn't planned, but man is it nice!

Next week is a full work week and then we'll be off to SLC for a few days. Always nice to get out of town...especially on a summer road trip. I hate road trips (this will never change from week to week. I hate them), but with Todd the trips are more exciting and frankly, far funnier. We laugh a whole bunch and take the most ridiculous pictures...my favorites on the trip from Denver to SLC always happen when we stop for ice cream at Little American in Wyoming. Except now there's not the Sinclair dinosaur there, which is really stupid and I have no idea why it's gone missing. But we'll take funny pictures anyway.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Educational Perfection

The summer semester is upon me.

Eight weeks of school, one more time.

Thankfully, I'm only taking 3 credits this semester (which, in a summer semester, is more like 9)...this time last year, I was taking 5 credits. Do the math, kids...that's like taking 15 credits. Oh the pain! So instead of going to school Mon/Tues/Wed/Thurs from 530pm until almost 9pm, I'll be going only Mon/Wed from 530pm until 800pm, which isn't bad at all. I just got done doing that and did it with relative ease. So there's that.

The Art & Craft of Writing, whatever that means, is my one and only class for the semester. Good times. I have the sneaking suspicion that it will be remarkably easy for me. Looking forward to that.

In other news, my final grades for the spring semester were posted last Friday. I am not happy. Got a "B" in both Intro to Lit and Spanish level 2. What the frick?!?! I expected the B in Spanish...I struggled with it all semester, for no good reason. But c'mon. I definitely expected an A in Literature. It was a totally brainless class (for me). I have some ideas as to why I wound up with a B and I blame it almost entirely on my weird disorganization during the latter part of the semester. But still.

I'm a perfectionist when it comes to my grades. I will rarely (if ever) accept less than the best. Because I put into it only the best. Okay, sometimes I slack, but not often and not much. Todd could tell you oodles of stories about my insane pursuit of educational perfection. It would spin your head.

All I really want to do is graduate with honors. It will not be that hard for me.

My overall GPA is sitting pretty at a lame 3.43, which is down from the last few semesters. Ergh.

I mean, what are we gonna do if we get kicked out???

Long weekends are probably my favorite.
We were both still fighting off the tail end of the nasty bug we caught in Vegas, but other than that, it was a good weekend.
Friday, Todd made my ultimate favorite dinner...Fettuccine with Chicken & Red Pepper Cream Sauce...nice and SPICY! Then we went to the movies and saw Prince Caspian, where we "reached our weekly quota of thinly veiled Christian propaganda" (according to a funny ecard Chandra sent me hahaha!)...we even bought popcorn and a Slurpee, making it a very official date night. It was gads of fun!

Saturday, I bought a new dress for the Sex & The City opening on Friday...I'm going with Karla and Laura and then meeting up with a bunch of other girl friends after the show for cosmos (of course!)...the dress perfectly matches my pink jacket from the wedding, which was totally unintentional but works out famously as I'll now look very "Charlotte" at the opening and that makes me giggle! :o)
We also bought new patio furniture and spent the better portion of the afternoon putting that together and grilling on Todd's new grill (which was also an adventure to put together, but fun nonetheless).
Then it was off to the symphony! It's probably one of our very favorite things to do in Denver. We should, at some point, really consider getting season tix. Anyway, this was a long-awaited show...I bought tickets back in February or something (maybe earlier). It was CSO presents The Music of Abbey Road. It was fricking fantastic! Topped off the evening with Blizzards from the ol' DQ where we saw one of the funniest marquis I'VE ever seen (wish I'd have had the camera with me...)

Sunday was a l-o-n-g day at church, but only because I had to be there at 8am for a rehearsal so that I could be ready to sing at the 1030am service. But it was a good (albeit long) service and I got to sing a wicked awesome version of the Battle Hymn with two of my fave ladies, Glo and Terri. We spent most of the afternoon planting new plants in the yard, trimming back the insane weeds that have cropped up around our rose bushes and along the fence, took the puppies to Baker Street for some drinks in the afternoon and then got the house cleaned up to have some peeps over to watch some good old fashioned executive transvestite comedy! Eddie Izzard, that is. It was a rocking good time that included grilling and chocolate cake as well, so there's that. Nothing bad can come of this combination, really.

Monday, we headed up the hill to play with Megan, Paul, Lotsie and Flanders (the last two being M&Ps crazy town puppies) Our little guys enjoyed themselves and even managed to bark Lotsie and Flanders off the porch a couple of times. This is most amusing if you know how small our dogs are and that Lotsie is a 70lb black lab-pit bull mix and that Flanders is a 50lb (??) terrier mix mutt thing. So it's miraculous to me that Suki told Lotsie who was boss at LOTSIE'S house! It was HILARIOUS! Did some grilling and watched a couple movies before packing up the weirdos and heading back down the mountain in the weirdest rain storm ever. Aaaahhhh....Memorial Day. Wouldn't quite be right without rain and 45F degree weather, right?

So this week, now that I'm healthy again, I'll be able to start my education again. That's right. I'm still in school. It's kind of weird because a bunch of my friends graduated this spring. I'm pretty far behind, but whatever.

Only 8 weeks of school and then off to Boston we go!!!!!!!

The long awaited "Vegas Blog"

Many many photos of our time in Vegas with our friends, Chandra & Heather...enjoy!

Silly traditions that actually work.

While I was in the midst of planning the wedding about a year ago now (gasp!), I was fighting with my mom and Todd about doing the garter and bouquet toss. I think they're slightly antiquated traditions and I've almost come to hate them. I know this will come as shock to most of you that know how much I abide by the terms of tradition. But I really do hate these traditions. I have no idea why.

Mostly because it's all myth and fancy, I suppose. It never actually works.

Until now.

Wouldn't you know it, but the girl that caught the bouquet at our wedding is actually the next one of my family's group of friends (and friends' kids) that will be getting married!



Her name is Jenae and I used to be her baby-sitter. It's kind of weird to see her all growed up like this now...




I couldn't have been happier that she was the one that caught the bouquet...and at the time, I didn't even know she'd been dating someone for the last umpteen years! She told me their story and it's very sweet....young love is so perfect, so innocent.



I don't know the story (and I stole this picture from her Facebook), but it's pretty obvious he proposed to her at Disney World (which really is the most magical place on Earth, even if you don't get engaged there)...

She deserves this....

much loves to Jenae!

Brought to you by "Focus on [your own damn] Family"

Really, what business is it of theirs?

I used to be a big fan of FOTF...but lately, they've just gotten on my nerves, what with their over-critical analysis of various movies (The Golden Compass being the biggest one in recent history) and their mis-interpretation of music lyrics (specifically "Switch" by Will Smith...grossly mis-interpreted a line which is rather difficult to mis-interpret if you're actually reading the lyrics which they pretty blatantly did not...but I've already blogged about this)...

And now this...

Give me a break. Really.

Leland Marlowe Read

My grandpa (on my dad's side) died a year ago this past weekend. Puts a bit of an interesting spin on Mother's Day for the family.

I'm apparently being forced to do some serious introspection regarding loss. Not necessarily just death (though that seems to be the big theme the last few months)....all kinds of loss.

Damn I love my family. The whole kit and kaboodle, man. Quirks and oddities. All of it. All of them. There's nothing I can't learn from anyone in my family.

I miss my grandpa. I miss his laugh, his cologne, his turkey gravy, his initial irritation when I didn't know how to use a steak knife. I miss his stories and his music. He played the organ. Every evening, he'd jam out to some of the most amazing music you could possibly imagine. Visiting my grandparents house was always an adventure.

Grandpa loved to grill. I loved seeing him sitting on the back porch/patio/whatever, drinking a beer and grilling up something amazing (I'm pretty sure it's where my dad learned to do all the awesome grilling he does). Except for the occasional dousing of MSG, everything grandpa cooked was delicious and wonderful.

He always had some new-fangled technological something-or-other in the house. One year, it was a thingy that you could edit home videos on, which my dad, grandpa and uncle Mike spent the entirety of Christmas afternoon trying to figure out.

And oh how he haaaaaaaaaaaaaated noise! Especially screaming little girls (me, my sister, my two cousins). He abhorred it and we knew it...and learned really quickly to be ever so quite while having our fun!

He loved the lake in Pennsylvania, loved to tinker in the garage, loved that old old Toyota truck of his.

But most of all he loved my grandma.

My very favorite memory of my grandpa is from when he was out in Denver for my brother's high school graduation. He had fallen and broken his hip while he was here so their stay got extended (you could say). My grandma and I went one day to visit him in the home he was doing his initial rehab at in Denver...the dymensia had long since started setting in along with the Alzheimer's which sucked all up and down the place (he's such a great story teller...it made me sad when the stories started getting out of whack). Anyway, that particular day was when Reagan died. I was the one to break the news to him. He was pretty sad about it...he has tons of stories about Reagan. So he started telling me one of them. Grandma had to fill in a lot of holes, but grandpa did most of the story-telling...he finished the story with a great deal of flair, but missed what I think must have been a major point of the whole thing so grandma filled that part in too....and as soon as she finished, he squeezed her hand, looked at me and said "And that's why she's my girl!"

I want that kind of love...

Week #19

It's been a while since I've done this...
But for obvious reasons, last week I was (and continue to be) ever grateful for my mom...



It's hard to list all the reasons for why I'm grateful for her so I'll just mention the big ones:
1. She makes me laugh.
2. She is a GREAT conversationalist.
3. She gives me good fodder.
4. She has some of the funniest quirks (puzzles, Clarks shoes, etc.)
5. And this is probably the biggest one of all....she teaches me every single day how to be the best woman I can possibly be. She is strong, strong-willed, opinionated. She doesn't let anyone walk all over her. She loves her kids without question. She has my dad pretty much wrapped around her finder (in all the best ways). She proves that it's possible to both love and be good at your profession. She is a good wife and and even better mother. And on top of all that, she loves Jesus a whole bunch.

I love my mom....

Inside every older person is a younger person - wondering what the hell happened.

So sayeth my sages hahaha!

Today is, according to Todd, the 28th anniversary of being expelled from my mother's uterus. Awesome.

I got my present from Todd a couple weeks ago when he took me to dinner and the opera, which was amazing...saw The Flying Dutchman which, if you don't know, is a German opera. Strange to hear opera in German since I'm most used to hearing it in Italian, but that just made it all the more interesting.

Today, he took me out for breakfast at one of my favorite little diner's in the neighborhood called Kyle's Kitchen. It's just a random little family place that's been in the 'hood forEVER and they make the best bowl of cream of wheat I think I've ever had. I get it pretty much every time we go there. That and one scrambled egg. Ah. Good times. I really want to be able to go in there some day and say "Just give me the uszh, Suzanne" and she'll know what I mean hahaha!

Got to work and my team had made a complete and utter spectacle of my cubicle in the style of "Tacky Vegas" (since I [heart] Vegas and we're going there next week). There are blinking lights all over, a huge glittery sign that scream HAPPY BIRTHDAY, gads of chocolate coins, a deck of cards that Chandra played 52-Card Pickup with, and glitter EVERYWHERE. Then there are 5 pink roses and some angelfood cake with strawberries (my favorite). Maryanne was seriously going to get a 7-foot blowup slot machine, but couldn't think of another reason she'd need it so she opted out (probably for the best, but it would have been HILARIOUS!)...

Oddly, as we're eating cake at my cube, Sue mentions that her sister told her that the CMAs are going to be in Vegas next weekend. WHAT?!?!?!? I exclaim, rather aghast. I immediately call Heather. She fell out of her chair...almost. It is important to note here that Heather used to live in Nashville...kind of has a love affair with it. And she loves country music, though not exclusively. Anyway, we checked online and it's true. I swear that if I see Faith Hill, I will probably throw up. Hopefully not on her.

How the hell did we get hotel rooms in Vegas?!?!? It's a miracle. We're destined to be in Vegas for this. Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh. I've never really seen a celebrity so this will be rather much the awesome....now I have to rethink my entire wardrobe. I mean, what if Paris Hilton is there?!??!?






Kidding.







Sort of.

This is going to be a good year. I can feel it in my bones.

These books exaserbate the genetic betrayal that is my legacy....

I got my first birthday present / card yesterday...from my sister. Can we just establish really quickly that she f-ing rules?

Now that that's out of the way, we'll continue.

She got me the following for my birthday:






I am officially about as dork-tastic as they come. My co-worker saw these books and immediately said "Oh those are SOOO you!"

It's true. I [heart] words. And games with words. I just want to make sure it's clear that with the first book listed, I will officially be kicking everyone's butts at Scrabble all over the hizzy. Don't think I won't try it.

Chandra and I need to find a Magna Doodle with which to institute a Word Of The Day at the office. Much to our dismay, Magna Doodles have been discontinued by one Fisher Price. Bastards! That is the best toy ever. I am currently upset with Fisher Price. But that is beside the point.

We need a magnetic writing apparatus.

In other news, this has apparently been the week of stupid questions and statements. To protect the stupid, I'll just leave it at that and not go further into why it's been that way this week. It just has. We've all had weeks like this.

And another thing. If you're going to make screwdrivers for yourself and your husband, you should probably remember to freeze the vodka and chill the orange juice prior to serving. Luke warm drinks are iffy, at best.

Clearly, this week, I have opted out of using much of the knowledge I've been carrying around for the last decade or so. Things like not plagiarizing. Seriously? I'm so dumb. But thank God for people dumber than me and inadvertently get the entire class two extra days to work on a project. I'm not getting kicked out of university for something that stupid!

That all said, I'm more than ready for today to become tomorrow...evening, preferably.

Nobody makes me bleed my own blood - nobody!

All of the wrenches from yesterday have been re-assembled and put back into place. Just in a new order. Perspective is definitely something that I need from time to time. For about 3 hours yesterday, I was pretty convinced that my world had been rocked and completely tossed on its head. Fortunately, after some careful calming down, I am finding that's not necessarily true.

So I guess the big news from all of the upheaval yesterday is that I got a promotion!
Woo hoo!
No more paper pushing craziness as of May 19th...so that's super exciting! Come home from Vegas to be greeted with an entirely new brand of madness at work....

This is all going to make certain things much easier on Todd and me, which is probably the most exciting thing right now. We've both been under and extreme amount of stress lately (to the point that I honest-to-God did not realize that I'd basically plagiarized some stuff on my big literature paper...not really even sure how that happened since I'm good at writing my own stuff and even better at BS-ing my way through a paper...fortunately I have until tomorrow to revise and finalize the thing before turning it in).

So the next two semesters will hopefully go better than this one did. This semester could best be described as "hell on wheels"...so here's to new opportunities and less stress!

I should have guessed this is how it would go......

It'll never happen, but man, would I ever love to give up this intense hold I have on planning every portion of my life out to a "T".

Nothing ever really works the way it's supposed to. Or rather, the way I intend for it to go. Maybe it's me trying to play God in so many areas of my life. I don't know. It's just that I've always been able to plan ahead. And for the last year or so, it's been basically fruitless to try to do so.

I knew when I was going to graduate, how much money it was going to take, when we could have kids....basically, I just knew the how, when and where of every single portion of my life. And now that's just not going to be the case. At least for a while.

Rather, we're kind of back to square one. Things have to go on hold. Not forever. Just for a bit. I'm trying to think of the most functional and reasonable answer to so many things, but mostly all I really want to do is cry.

Not because I'm sad, but because I'm totally clueless anymore.

So here we go, one more time.

Prayers please?

That ain't no Etch-A-Sketch. This is one doodle that can't be un-did, Homeskillet.

What a weekend!

I believe that Friday night was one of the most fantastic nights we've had together since getting the puppies. We ate delicious hamburgers (with cheese, pineapple rings and BBQ sauce), drank some wine and watched JUNO, which is one of my new favorite movies. It lived up to it's hype, that's for sure. And aside from the knocking-up-of-high-school-girfriend, the boyfriend in the movie really is strikingly similar to our friend, Phill Blecker (this was first told to me by his wife, my friend, Karla...interestingly, the characters name in the movie is Paul Bleeker...what?!?! It's total craziness!). And I'm trés in love with the opening and closing songs, which make me want to do our first dance all over again just because they're so perfect! And really, any movie with Allison Janney is going to be good time...she's so funny...first fell in love with her in 10 Things I Hate About You...

Anyway, that was to be the end of our relaxing weekend. Saturday was up and at 'em to take the dogs to the dog park where they went totally batty for almost an hour and STILL had energy left over. Then we went down to Castle Rock to visit some of my in-laws and introduce them to the puppies, which was pretty funny! Our niece, Dani, decided that the dogs looooooooooove her, which they do, and was trying to make Leo sit the whole afternoon...he was just too excited to function so he never really did it unless Todd was there (surprise surprise...he only really listens to Todd anyway). And Todd mastered Mariokart for the Wii, much to the joy of our nephews (the adults all knew about Todd's propensity for mastering any type of video game so we just kind of giggled at it).

On our way home, we stopped at Petsmart to get Leo a PACKPACK!!!!!!!!! He needs something to distract him while we're on our walks so that he quits with the incessant and irritating whining. So far, so good. And he looks SOOOO funny with his little tiny backpack on! So far, we've made him carry our cellphones and camera...we need to get tiny bottles of water to give the backpack more weight, but so far, the whole "working"thing is working for Leo. Weirdo.

Sunday was spent with the pups, studying like crazy, speaking non-stop Spanish with my mom, watching TV, reading, hanging out with Heather and Bailey, eating pizza, attempting to de-weed the front and back yard, and then making every attempt to finish my research paper for English. This did not happen. I got close, but this isn't horseshoes or hand grenades so I still have quite a bit of work left to do. I thought that the paper was due on Thursday...it's actually due tomorrow. Hot. But the nice thing is that once this is done, I'm basically finished for the semester. I still have another week and a half of classes, but at least there aren't really any projects due. Just some piddly homework and then my finals. And then Vegas. Oh, thank GOD.

I did everything I could do to stay awake last night to write this paper (which is on the Southern Gothic movement of literature, in case you were wondering, which I'm sure most of you weren't)...hot chocolate, television, sauvignon blanc, puppies, chips and salsa, foot rubbing...but around 9:30pm, I honest to God passed out. I'm not even sure I remember falling asleep. So that's awesome.

So I fully intend for this week to be a good one. The weather is nice and school is almost over. And if I'm lucky, I'll actually remember my own birthday this year (which is on Friday)...I typically forget every year. It's kind of hilarious, but kind of sad haha!

So here we go!.......

There's not really an appropriate title for this one.....

Most of you have probably heard me go on and on about how much I do not care for Carmelo Anthony but on the off chance that you've escaped my multitudinous tirades regarding him, you're going to get another one right here (how exciting!)....

The basic gist of what I think is that he's an uneducated thug. It's rather disappointing to think that he was accepted to fricking SYRACUSE for sobbing out loud and that a) the NBA thought (thinks) it's appropriate to recruit a kid who's not even an adult yet and b) that he figured it would be a good idea to forgo this amazing educational opportunity...granted, he was signed on for like a billion dollars or something. But that just goes to show how naivety and greed can really screw a kid up. I kind of long for the "good ol' days" of Michael Jordan...when a kid had to PROVE HIS WORTH before someone would pony up the kind of cash that Carmelo got, right out the gate.

Not only that, but when did we ever see Jordan in the news for something as stupid, reckless and irresponsible as drunk driving or brawling at a game? I mean, really. This is most of why I can't stand Mr. Anthony. He behaves like an utter jackass, for all intents and purposes.

I'm tired of him being in the news. I'm so over hearing about how great he is. It exhausts me that so much publicity is given to this kid that has done virtually NOTHING noteworthy outside of basketball.

When are we going to get some news that's worth reporting? When is the NBA (or any professional sporting association for that matter) going to balls up and do what's right? These slaps on the wrist are complete nonsense....and insulting, frankly. The kid was driving WASTED. How stupid do you have to be to have the kind of cash he does and not hire a damn driver? This is the kind of crap I'm talking about. This kid has NO idea what to do with his money or how to handle his power...he throws it around like he's some kind of Greek god, which he so clearly is not.

The best part of the whole thing was his bullsh*t apology (and Melo, just an FYI, but "brung" isn't a word).

This simply is not a person that any kid should be looking up to. Or that any parent should be endorsing at this point.

Carmelo, get a grip. Get an education. Behave like the adult you claim you are. Be a person that deserves the money and power you've been given. The trust? Well, son, that has to be earned and you're a long way off...clearly.