See you in a few days...

This is the last week of the first summer session so everything is due by the end of the week. Since I gave myself five (yes, five) days off I have to hole myself up for the rest of the week to get everything done.

I have a birthday lunch today and then that's it. I wish I could get my five days back. Those five days were fun though...





See you soon.

Friday Night Orca

The last two weekends John and I had family staying with us. We loved having them but we decided that this weekend we needed to have a date night. On Friday night we enjoyed some food and beverages from a lovely little eatery.

We had a great time and just when I thought our experience couldn't get better, it did. John won me a shiny Orca. I named him Toby.




Apparently I LOVED Toby.

The Toy Story Trilogy Is Just Not Meant to Be for John and Me...

The first Toy Story came out about two years before John and I started dating so we definitely didn't see that one together. I think I probably saw it in El Paso at Tinseltown with my family.

Then in 1999, Toy Story 2 came out. I watched it with my mom and one of her friends. I loved it so much that I took John to see it. We went to eat Mexican food before the movie and while we were in the restaurant I developed a horrible headache but wanted to go to the movie anyway.

Big mistake.

I lasted about twenty minutes before I had to excuse myself. Apparently the headache was a migraine. I was violently ill for the next six to seven hours.

We never went back to see the movie.

On Sunday we went to see Toy Story 3. We were finally going to watch a Toy Story together. About half an hour into the movie I looked over at John to find him in this state...





Sorry Toy Story, it's not you...

I Wanna Quit the Gym...

Two years ago I joined Pure Fitness. The first year I went A LOT. The second year not so much. It was just easier to workout at home. My two year obligation has ended so it was finally okay to quit the gym.

Having to end my membership made me think of the old Friends episode where Chandler wanted to quit.

My experience wasn't so difficult. I was all prepared to have to keep reiterating that I just wanted to quit. I was even going to give you the whole story of the gym quitting drama.

But there was no drama. I said I wanted to quit. Meathead Gym Guy asked me why. I told him I hadn't been there for months and had everything I needed at home. He asked me if there was anything he could say to help me change my mind. I told him that there wasn't then that was it. He said, "Sign here" and just like that I no longer had access.

My gym quitting experience was a major disappointment.

Thanks Guys

John's parents sent him some birthday cash and this was his way to say, "Hey thanks. Look what you bought me."




I think he's in love.

Girls Night

Last night Joni and I celebrated Lauren's 31st birthday with her. We ate delicious food and laughed. A lot.

Here I am with my lovely lady friends...




Here I am laughing with Joni. Lauren was laughing too but she was taking the picture. We were undoubtedly laughing at something slightly inappropriate. It was probably something Lauren said. Just kidding. It was Joni. ;)




Lovely lady friends are awesome.

Self Portrait Fail

I was having a really really hard time getting myself into gear yesterday morning. I needed to start my day of homework. Instead I tried to utilize our camera timer to take pictures of myself not beginning my day of homework.






It didn't go so well.

Fun in the Sun...in men's swim trunks

Today I took a break from homework and had a play date for some swim time. We were about to go outside when Natalie came out of the restroom to announce her issue. Her issue was that she forgot to bring her bathing suit bottoms.

Uh oh.



So she swam without bottoms. Just kidding. The only clean bottom option we had was a pair of John's trunks. Sometimes a girl just has to do what she has to do. Even when what she has to do is a bit big...




Thanks for the laughs Natalie. I've never seen anyone work so hard at keeping their swimsuit from falling off.

Little Buddy

John's brother, wife and three kids came into town on Friday. They're on their way to California so they stopped through for a couple of nights. It was fun having their family with us. They have two boys who are 8 and 14. They also have a girl who is 16.

Uncle John definitely had a little buddy running around with him this weekend. They were like peas and carrots.












They're a fun family but unfortunately I don't have pictures from the weekend of the rest of the family. They aren't too big on getting their picture taken so I decided to be a nice auntie and not torture them with the camera. T on the other hand LOVES getting his taken. I actually have several more pictures of him.

What a difference a nurse practitioner makes...

I don't know about you but I often prefer nurse practitioners over doctors. Well, except for my general doctor. He's super sweet and will spend a lot of time with me. I guess I'm specifically talking about my woman doctor and the dermatologist I went to last summer.

Last summer I went to the dermatologist doctor woman who spent about five minutes with me. She told me that in a couple years I could get an eye lift and she gave me this bottle of eye cream...




The cream was fine but nothing spectacular. Yesterday I went to a different dermatology office and saw a nurse practitioner. She was AWESOME. She spent much longer with me and actually listened to me.

I found out a lot from her. She confirmed my high school dermatologist's diagnosis of Ichthyosis. She said that I have a very mild case and should be able to manage it well. She said I'll never have skin like other people's but I can manage it so that it's at least comfortable.

Of course I talked to her about the lines around my eyes. She made me feel a lot better. She said that she doesn't think I need cosmetic procedures yet (I was totally ready to begin them) and to revisit the prospect of them when I'm 40.

Check out what she gave me...




The big bottles I bought based on her recommendations and the small ones are samples she gave me. I'm most excited about those tiny tubes. In those tubes are Retin-A Micro. I will have a bigger tube today. She had to give me a prescription for that. Retin-A Micro will soften my fine lines. I just have to be even more careful with my sun exposure because it will make me very sensitive to the sun.

I did my first round of my new skin regime last night and really liked the results. I feel moisturized without feeling like I'm living under a coat of lotion. I am really really excited to start seeing the fine lines get softer. I'm also excited that at my new dermatology office there's a medical estitition there.

Nurse practitioners rock.

Have a great weekend you guys.

My Handy Man

In our bathroom we have one sink. To the right of the sink is John's side which is nice and neat. To the left of it is my side. My side looks like a hoarder has taken up residence. It's pretty bad. It's so bad that I didn't want to include pictures. I'll just let you imagine it.

John decided to help me take control of the situation. He got busy making me a cabinet.




He worked on it every night last week after work. Here she is...



Now check out the inside. Under the hooks for my straightener and hair dryer are spaces for the cords to hang through. Then he made room for my dangly earrings. It's been so awesome just opening my cabinet and seeing which earrings would work for my outfit. If none of them work I just pull out my jewelry box which is also in the cabinet and put in some studs. I even have room for a lot more pairs.




I LOVE my custom cabinet and John loves my new clean side. I could even sit up there now if I wanted to. I may do it today.

BlaineLong.com

On Saturday night we went to our friend Blaine's cd release party/concert. He has a website which is of course blainelong.com. John calls him that from time to time.

I don't often post pictures of my friends on here but I'm doing it today.

These are two of my friends who I met at work. L and B. B is the other Resource teacher at my school. She's soon to be the only Resource teacher. We don't have enough students for two teachers any more so she's going to be the lone Ramone Resource teacher. I'm switching over to self contained. That's a story for another post but I'm really excited about it.



This is jonilong.com. B was trying to avoid getting her picture taken again but I'm too quick for her.




Here I am with Weird Face. He loves it.



Blaine's genre of music is folky. I think it's just one shake away from being country. He's very talented and things just keep getting better and better for his career. Well, there was this guy there that was really feeling his music. He was dancing like he was at a Rave. It was pretty funny but distracting. We took video of him for a little while. I thought that the video I uploaded to my post was him but it's Blaine. I'll upload Crazy Guy another time.

Crazy Eyez Killah

Today is John's birthday so we'll be celebrating all day today. Yay for birthdays. I just wanted to show you guys this picture we took of ourselves last night. I look a little crazy.




That was for sure the creepiest picture ever taken of me. So you won't be left with the crazy image in your head I included the next picture we took. I'm back to normal.

The world after midnight

I'm up working on school. Well, at the moment I'm taking a little break from being up working on school. I'm very, very sleepy and jittery. It's a weird combination. I'm sleepy because I'm just not made to be up this late. I'm jittery because I drank a whole pot of coffee on my own so I could be up this late. I'm not so sure that was a good idea.

It sure is quiet at my house during this late hour. John and Kita are both asleep and the house is dead silent. I'm not used to that. Even though only two people and a puppy live here it's kind of loud. It's loud in a good way.

I work in the guest bedroom and John pops in about every 30 minutes to check on me. He usually says something funny and then pops back out. I hear his music, his video games, his crazy programming he likes to watch and other stuff he's up to. Now he's sleeping and it's just too quiet. I need to work for a little longer so I'm going to put some tunes on.

I'm also getting hungry. Late night eating is the worst kind of eating but I'm very tempted right now. I'd like to go ahead and fast forward time to December. That's when all this crazy school stuff will be over and you can start calling me Master.

You know, I never knew how much time I really had during the summer until it's been stripped away from me...willingly.

Not So Fast

Yesterday was my first day of summer vacation and I thought it was going to be so relaxing. I was wrong. As it turns out taking three Masters courses in the summer is pretty rigorous. Who knew? I should have. Have I already made my "taking Crack" joke on here about my decision to get my Masters in one year? If I haven't then I'll do it now. I must have been on Crack.

Even though yesterday entailed 7.5 hours of homework (I should have done so much more) I did get to do things that only summer would allow:

• My workout was a full hour. I did this Bikini body video my sister in law gave me for Christmas. This last semester my workouts were about 30 minutes on cardio days and 45 minutes on cardio/strength training days. I prefer them to be 1 to 1.5 hours.
  

• Grocery shopped at 11:00 am. That's a glorious time to shop. The only distraction was a very loud couple who always seemed to be in the row next to mine. They were very excitable, especially the husband. He was most excited about the pickles. He told his wife she could pick out any pickles she wanted. That made me laugh.

• Used a bronzer for my pale, pale skin. John thinks it's already helping.

• Cooked dinner. I mean really cooked. I made whole wheat penne pasta with turkey sausage and mushrooms. Poor John has been getting pretty much nothing but Lean Cuisines since January. A couple of weeks ago I heated up chicken nuggets in the oven and baked beans on the stove top and we felt like we were eating a home cooked meal.

I'm off to start my day of homework. This afternoon I'm getting a trim and partial highlights. When I called to make my appointment yesterday the girl asked me if I wanted full or partial highlights. I'm not exactly sure what that means but I told her partial. I hope that works out okay.