manicdote

I’m so excited! We’re either driving tonight to Orlando or leaving first thing in the morning. Mostly it depends on how we feel this evening. But that specifically  means that this is my LAST DAY at work for like…two weeks. It’s not that I don’t love my job, because I do, it’s more like I haven’t had a vacation in over a year and I need some time off! And…Disneyworld? Talk about fun!

I will miss the puggies, but they’re going to be having a blast at our Vet, Dr. Jere’s place - they will actually be staying at his house with his dogs sleeping on his couch. So they will probally not want to leave and come back home.

Terry has set up four timers for various lights and radios to come on at random times during the day for security. Not that we really have anything to steal. We just don’t want it looking like no ones home…you know?

We’re mostly packed, just a few last minute things to pack tonight before we go. I’m so excited! Oh, and don’t despair, we’ll probally post more  on vacation than we’ve been doing in a while because we’re taking the laptop and I also have the ability to post from my cell phone…so check back frequently for amusing posts and pictures of us on vacation at Disneyworld.

Well, over the weekend (May 25th) - I had my birthday. And the few days preeceding it were spent in a frenzy of cleaning up the house for my father’s arrival…and I’m not sure if they were even here 24 hours and certainly only spent maybe 10 minutes at the house. *sigh* Isn’t that always the way it goes?

Nevertheless, I had an awesome, wonderful time on my birthday. And I got tons of birthday loot. First of all, my Mom sent me those gorgeous flours and balloons that were delivered on Saturday. (Pictures posted on that day from my cell phone). Cool! Flowers always make you feel special, don’t you?

And that day Terry gave me two early birthday gifts…some cookbooks that he’d got for me because he knows how much I love to cook and how much I love reading cookbooks. I got a really cool cookbook from Top Chef, and then I got Jamie Oliver’s new coobook called, COOK with Jamie. It’s really, really great. While a lot of what he cooks isn’t exactly to my liking, I really love a lot of what he talks about. A lot of what he’s saying makes sense and I love his sensibility of cooking. It’s really a gorgeous book and I love reading it and drooling over the photos.

I also got a wonderful gift certificate from Amazon.com from my Mom. I’m still trying to figure out how I want to spend it. I know I’m DEFINATLY getting a gorillapod. Those are wicked cool! And maybe one of Rachel Ray’s garbage bowls? I’ve been really wanting one of those. Or possibly a cutting board? The possibilities are endless! Endless, I say!

And without further ado, here are a few pictures taken this weekend with my brand NEW camera. That was my ACTUAL gift from Terry. Given to me with breakfast over coffee on my birthday morning. Is there any better way to wake up than freshly ground coffee, electronics and your man in boxers? (Mom/Dad, cover your eyes at that point!)

Poley, my first subject:

Ruki, who sat oddly patient while I fiddled with the settings. The photo is a little bright…but look at that CLARITY! I’m so impressed with this camera!

The pugs being impatient and wanting out of their crate. Immediately after this photo was snapped they were ordered “off” (to get down off the crate walls) and to “sit”. They’re not allowed up on the sides like that (even though the LOVE to do it). We’re trying to break them of the habit, but I thought I’d include a photo of what we usually see all the time instead of a beautified version of reality. And ignore the poop in the background of the shot in the litterbox. Reality is beautiful, damnit!

I love, love, LOVE this shot. Ruki is constantly doing this. When not asleep, she is usually walking around on her hind legs. Seriously. I need to get her on Letterman. She’s pretty talented! (Eek! Isn’t it adorable, too?!)

After my family showed up on Sunday, May 25th, we went off to dinner at Mikata (Japanese Steakhouse) which was a lot of fun. There were 6 of us (always fun with a party) and a lot of people had never been to a place like that so that’s always cool…I hate going out with jaded cynics! And I’m such a goof! I totally forgot to take photos while we were there. Ugh! Anyways, later that night we had a great time hanging out at their hotel drinking beer/wine (and rootbeer for me). We also had a red velvet cake with all 31 candels and after nearly burning the place down we enjoyed a few slices. It was a great night.

The next morning we met up at a local Cracker Barrel restaurant for breakfast. We had a leisurely breakfast then afterwards we sat out on the front porch and chatted while rocking on the rocking chairs that they have for sale outfront. It was fun! Here are a few pictures from that time.

Me, my awesome father (recovered from his surgery! Thank-you for your prayers!) and Terry:

Here’s my cool Uncle Syd, my Dad and Terry. The men in my life. Well, except Poley, but I guess he doens’t count…?

Here’s a little bit of T & A for your day. Contain yourself.

I also finally got back to scrapbooking…created this last night. Fun!

Well, yesterday was Mother’s Day, and despite the fact that I was cleaning all day yesterday in preperation for guests later in the month (actually less than two weeks away), I fully had intentions to call my Mom and see how her day was going.

And I totally forgot. I feel like such an idiot! Can you believe it? Although it’s not like I forgot the holiday all together. I did send her flowers, chocolate and a handmade card:

However, I still feel horrible about it. I love my mom so much and I can’t believe I couldn’t set aside 10 minutes out of my day to call her. *sigh* Mom, forgive me. You gave birth to an forgetful, procrastinating child. But shes loves you and thinks of you as her best friend. My mother is one cool cat. She is super smart (taught herself how to program VCR and all how to use computer), she’s super creative (has been painting and teaching art for decades), she’s funny, generous, sweet, a great cook, a wonderful mother and my inspiration. One day I want to be a mother just like her.

Mom, I love you.

“Love at first sight is easy to understand; it’s when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle.” - Amy Bloom

“You call it madness, but I call it love.” - Don Byas

“A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.” - Ingrid Bergman 

Well, today is the day. The day all single women detest and women in a relationship count the minutes until gifts arrive. Well, Terry actually surprised me with flowers last night! I was pretty shocked when he showed up with red roses in a beautiful vase. It was the day before Valentines, so I was completely unexpecting anything (wow, that was terrible grammer. Whatever. Suck it, Trebeck!). Nevertheless, it was a beautiful and wonderful surprise, as no man has gotten me flowers in….a very long time. He also got me a box of chocolates (YUM!), Starbucks coffee (SUPER yum!) and, of course, Rukia was our gift to each other for Valentines.

But I also got him this video game that he’d been wanting, called “Devil May Cry 4″ and he was really stoked about that. He was playing it for a while last night and it did look pretty cool.

Here is an interesting fact that I just stumbled across: 3% of pet owners give Valentine’s Day gifts to their pets. Sadly, I am one of those 3%. Are you?

Oh, and if there are any men reading this - please check out this really great article on Valentine’s Day Myths. Good reading!

So, this is just a quick short post, mostly to tell everyone that visits “HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!” and that I wish you all a wonderful day and night. Here’s a picture of us (an oldie, but goodie) being in love and having a great time. Happy day!

A lot of websites are giving stuff away lately and I haven’t won anything. I was getting pretty depressed about this, figuring that the world was consipiring against me, keeping Allison, Terry, Napoleon & Rukia down. Well, that was until I won something. Page’s Blog was celebrating her 1-year anniversary of blogging and she gave away one of the candles that she sells in her spare time. I’m pretty excited because I love candles and it’s right before Valentine’s Day, so of course it works out perfectly. Here is a mini-slide show of what it looked like as I opened said gift:

And then I opened the Gold Canyon candle in the scent “Cinnamon Bayberry” and smelled it. It smells great!

So, one more time, thank-you VERY much Page! What a wonderful candle and Terry and I are totally enjoying it. It works so well since we’re totally lazy and haven’t taken our Christmas Tree down (I cropped it out of the pictures). Personally, I like to thinke we’re just very festive people and we’re expanding the season. Yes, that’s it. No, not lazy at all.

Hey everyone, it’s Christmas Eve! My Mom is here in town and we’ve been having a blast with her, showing her around Alabama and doing last-minute shopping for the holidays. Yesterday we went to PetCo and got all of the stuff we needed for the upcoming arrival of Napoleon, who we’re going to the breeders to pick up this afternoon. I can’t wait to get him and have him in our family! It’s going to be such a blast! I’ll also post lots of pictures of our first day with Napoleon, as well of Christmas Eve dinner and the opening of all the gifts.

Also, I’ve started my job, been working for about 3 1/2 days now, and I really like it. Technically my job title is “Sales Assistant” because I’m assisting the Sales departmnet, but since it’s a small-ish television station, most people do multiple jobs. I’ll be assisting the sales department and the Traffic department. And “traffic” has nothing to do with cars. It’s what they call assigning all the programming to the right times and linking up the right commercials to air at the right time and during the right shows. It’s kinda complicated and I only know a very, very small amount of what I believe will end up as my duties. Right now I can really only pull a few reports and do a little bit of data entry. But, nonetheless, it’s pretty fun and I’m enjoying it. The people are really great (even though they made me work Christmas Eve).