Anniversary Weekend

Friday night we went with my parents & Logan to Live After Five. It's downtown on Friday's during the fall & there's a different band every week. The weather was fabulous and we had a good time. After it was over Dean & I stopped at WalkOns to eat. This is the Ta-Ta Tamer!

It was really good and $3.00 goes towards breast cancer research. Just doing my part! We ordered the onion ring tower. I know it says tower but I wasn't expecting this. 

I swear it was like 10 lbs. of onions. They were really good but we didn't finish them until last night. No joke!

Saturday was our anniversary. We had errands to run so we had breakfast out. We went to Another Broken Egg. Sooo good! These are biscuit beignets.

Really good & the honey marmalade was amazing!

I've become a huge fan of eggs benedict. This had crab cakes. Wow! Delish!

Saturday night we went to Caliente with some of the regular crew to watch the LSU game. We last until the beginning of the third quarter & decided to call it a night. It's not fun to lose.

Since it was our anniversary we did manage to take a picture. I'm not happy with it but whatevs.

I did my long run Sunday with Scott & Lydia at the LSU lakes. It's so pretty out there.
 

There are several different lakes & lots of trees and gorgeous houses. 

It's very obvious by the pics that I'm not usually a take pictures while I run girl. I'll have to practice.

If we ever win the lottery I will be living with a view of one of these lakes.

 It will have to be a big lottery!

We're all running the Gulf Coast Half in Mandeville on the 19th. Lydia ran 10 mi., I did 11 and Scott did 13 (Showoff). It's bad enough that you know he's fast & he's running further than you are but when he starts after you & goes running by & then passes you again when you've only ran 8 it's a bit annoying. Did I mention Scott taunts us as he goes by? Yeh, annoying.

11 miles in 2:04 & I burned 1191 calories. One thing about running later than I normally do is that I don't have as much time to eat back all of the calories I burned!!

Toodles!

I Think I'm in Love

Have y'all heard of Kendra Scott? She's designs all sorts of fabulous jewelry. Really, really cute stuff. Sweet little Amelia-Ann, my neighbor, turns 16 today. I can't imagine how her parents feel because I'm in shock over the whole thing. She was 6 & the cutest little girl ever when we moved in. I wanted to get her an actual gift rather than a gift card or something. Her older sister mentioned Kendra to me & I knew that was perfect. So off I went Wednesday after work. I found a super cute necklace for her. Well, I think it's super cute but who knows, she's 16 after all. Anyway, I'd love it if someone gave it to me. Wednesday night was ladies night & all bracelets & rings were 15% off. I bought myself a bracelet.

I'm not sure what my problem is but when shopping for gifts for other people I always find stuff for myself.  Anyway, if you're looking for cute jewelry you should check out Kendra.

Last night we went to Flemings for our anniversary dinner. Our 11th anniversary is tomorrow but there's a LSU game so we'll be watching that with friends.The food was delicious! No pictures because I feel a little self conscious whipping out the camera in a semi-fancy restaurant. I had an amazing wedge salad that had a strip of bacon instead of crumbles & little slabs of blue cheese. So very good. I wasn't in the mood for steak but they had sea bass last night & it was delicious. We splurged & had dessert too. Carrot cake. Yes, I know, who gets carrot cake in a restaurant? So glad we did. It was amazing! It was served with homemade chantilly whipped cream. They even put a little candle on it for our anniversary. It was a good night.

Have a great weekend!

Toodles.

Happy October!!

No, I'm not a big fan of Halloween. I mean I don't have strong feelings against it, I'm just not a oh yay let's go dress up & go to a party. October is my favorite month though. Our anniversary is the 4th & my birthday is the 29th. What big plans do we have Saturday you ask?? Yeh that would be a big fat nothing. We'll go to dinner but it won't be Saturday because you know, there's a LSU game to watch. We do have a trip to Napa booked in a few weeks. I'm looking forward to that. I also have a girls trip o the beach planned for next weekend. My Half Marathon is Oct. 19th so we'll be in Mandeville for that. Looking at all that makes me realize that it's going to be November before I know it. That means Christmas will be here soon. I don't think I'm ready for that.

Friday night we went to Live After 5:00 to see Werewolf. Love them! They play lots of 80's & 90's music.

Saturday was my 10 mile run. I was registered for a 5K so I had to break up the run. I wasn't sure how this would work for me.I got up at 5:15 & got 7 miles in before the race.


When I finished I grabbed some water & took off to the race. It was at Pennington Biomedical. Allie did the race with me. We didn't take any pictures. I was running this race for the mileage. The plan was to not worry about my time.


My official chip time was 30:53 which is just a couple of seconds slower than my PR. I was shocked! I was 4 in my age group. I can't figure out how to feel about this. I almost PR'd & I'd already ran 7 miles sooooo that means I should be able to go faster when just running a 5K. It's just weird. After the race I managed to get in a nap but believe it or not it was only 1.5 hours. What I did not do was take an ice bath. When I start getting up to 9 or so miles I try to do an ice bath. It definitely works! I've been sore this week.

Saturday night was the LSU game. We got together with our friends & I ate way too much. Crab dip, bruschetta, lasagna, bread, corn dip and this

WEDDING CAKE CUPCAKE!!! Seriously, I couldn't resist. I kept telling myself I ran 10 miles but really I did not need all of that food.

Sunday my parents came over & we were hoping to swim but it rained. Oh well. It's supposed to be cool this weekend so we may be done swimming for the year.

Monday morning I was up early to get my run in.


I was happy that I got the whole 5 miles done because there was a light rain.

This morning was tough. I got up ok but I was sore & tired.
I got it done. The annoying boot campers got me going too. I've mentioned before how they take over the road. Today there was a tire & a rope. I don't know if they're doing Crossfit or what. They need to learn to share the road!

At some point today I developed an eye twitch. OMG so annoying! Seriously, it's driving me crazy. I hope it disappears as fast as it appeared.

Toodles!

TGIF!

Like seriously thank goodness. I'm sooooo tired. Last night was the big One Direction concert. My friend Suzy was bringing her little girl Stafford & her friend. They had an extra ticket so I went too. I've always had a thing for boy bands. Story of My Life is a really, really good song.

I spend the day yesterday drinking coffee & tea in anticipation of the late night. They picked me up at my office at 4:00.

Thank goodness we didn't leave any later. It took us 2.5 hours to get to the Superdome. Normally, it's an hour drive. We spent the ride listening to One Direction and 5 Seconds of Summer who was opening for them.

Our seats were pretty good. Especially, considering how big the Dome is. Due to the excessive amount of traffic and a no left turn sign we weren't able to eat before getting to the concert. Yay, Dome food! HA! I had chicken tenders, fries & a Coke. Apparently, the Dome doesn't sell Dr Pepper. Nothing annoys me more than when I'm going to have a drink & there's no DP. My second choice would be Sprite but considering the late night I was anticipating I went with Coke. I needed the caffeine. I
t was ok. Of course it cost like $5. Oh well.

The concert was supposed to start at 7:00. Notice I said supposed to. At 7:15 5 Seconds of  Summer came out. They were cute & put on a good show. They played for 45 minutes.

In retrospect I'm glad we didn't get to the concert any earlier. That would've have meant sitting in the meat locker that was the Dome for even longer. I cannot begin to imagine how much the electricity bill is. Every little while I could feel a gust of wind. Apparently, I was under a vent. We were on the second level so it's not like we were close to the ceiling. I'm sooo glad I didn't wear shorts or capri's. My poor toes were frozen & numb.

At 9:30, yes 9:30, an hour and a half after the opening act finished, One Direction decided to grace us with their presence. Geeze. The natives were getting restless & the mama's, daddy's & friends of the families (me) were getting highly annoyed. The only saving grace was the people watching. There were the little girls, like 5 & 6 years old that were sooo excited to be there & soooo adorable, there were the squealing tweens that squealed at EVERY. LITTLE. THING. There were the teenagers that wanted to be older and there were the mama's that wanted to be younger. There was a chick dressed as a banana and another dressed in a very fluffy, rainbow colored tutu with matching furry looking leg warmers. I'm not describing her well. Think Dr. Seuss and Whoville. The most entertaining thing we saw was one of the guys that walk around selling water was really enjoying all the music they were playing. He danced & danced all while selling water. Which brings me to something else. There was a "safety video" before the show & they kept replaying it. Things like don't push, don't throw things & drink lots of water. HUH??? Weird. Then there was the security guard that got in on the act. He danced too. Very entertaining. The one thing that I didn't see was anyone in Nike shorts & a t-shirt that's too big for them. SHOCKING DEVELOPMENT RIGHT THERE. I don't know how it is where y'all are but that's a common sight in Baton Rouge with the high school & college girls. I promise you I would've never left the house looking like that back in the day.

So, finally, the lights went out & the squealing louder than you ever thought possible started.

The lights are all phones. Harry said to hold up your phone & I mean when Harry Styles says to do something it gets done.

With all the strobe lights I never got a good picture but here they are.

I'm not sure what the delay was in starting the show. They didn't put any thought into their outfits - t-shirts & skinny jeans - and Harry didn't fix his hair. It was in a bun. There was some talk that some sort of craziness was going on back stage because Liam came out with a cast on his arm. I'm not sure what's going on with the youth of today. It took me about 1.2 seconds to find out that Liam broke his arm in Vegas on Sept. 16th at his 21st birthday party when he attempted to break dance. What's the point of an iPhone if you don't use Google???

The boys put on a good show, not as good as NKOTB - they don't have quite as much personality, but it was good. They didn't do a lot of talking but when they did it was all thanks for coming & NOLA, you're the loudest place we've been which I'm sure they say everywhere they go but that resulted in a whole new round of screams & squeals. They played from 9:30-11:15. I would've been happier if they cut out the chit chat.

Thankfully, traffic wasnt't as bad going home. I walked in the house at 1:00 this morning. Needless to say there was no workimg out this morning. This is what happens when I get 4.5 hours of sleep.

This was followed by a Dr. Pepper!

My plan was to go straight home from work & take a nap. Imagine how excited I was when the boss said we could leave at 12:15 because there wasn't much going on. I had a delightful 3 hour nap!

Have a great weekend!

Toodles!

Hump Daaayyyy!

Yes that commercial still makes me laugh!







Imagine my excitement when I saw this weather this morning. Even more exciting was the dew point was 59!! I do not live in Arlington, TX. There's an area near where I live in Baton Rouge that is called Arlington. It's not a city or anything & I don't know why it's called that. This weather app is accuweather & I like it because it shows dew point. When I first started using it the Arlington would pop up & I'd go in & change it to Baton Rouge. I thought it was odd that it was always exactly the same weather as Arlington, which I was assuming was Arlington, TX because you know, nobody calls the area near me Arlington. It's just Baton Rouge because it's, you know, in Baton Rouge. Confused yet? I am. I mentioned this to Dean one day & he's the one that reminded me of the Arlington area. So confusing. It's sorta like on FB when I post at my house it says "near Brusly". The only difference is Brusly is an actual city. It's across the river but "as the crow flies" probably only a few miles away. Anyway, all that to say, the weather was great & I'm very easily confused by things.



I'm also having issues with people lately. When NCIS New Orleans was first mentioned & they talked about Scott Bakula I somehow had it in my head that he was Balki from Perfect Strangers. Does anyone remember that show? It was hilarious. Scott Bakula is not Balki. Then yesterday I saw on Twitter that Vince Vaughn & Will Ferrell are the new peeps on True Detective. I didn't watch the show when McConaughey was on it because we don't have HBO but if I did & I still wouldn't watch because I can't think of anything more awful than watching those two together! Vince's incessant talking drives me insane & I just can't stand Will. I don't think he's funny AT ALL. Yes, I know I'm in the minority. Come to find out, it's COLIN Ferrell not Will. Interesting.



So anyway, I ran my 5 miles this morning in the perfectly delightful weather.





And I was annoyed. You might ask how one gets annoyed at 5:00 am when they run by themselves. I'll tell you. When the boot campers leave the driveway & do their entire workout spread across the entire width of the street & use cones that require you to run through their workout & dodge people running at you. ANNOYED!!!

So next time you hear from me I'll get to tell you all about the One Direction concert!!

Toodles!






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Happy Anniversary!

I'm tired. I say that way too much but I really am tired. We had a busy weekend. Why does riding in a car make you tired? Anyway, Friday after work we headed to Texas. My brother in law, niece & nephew live in Pearland. It's 4.5-5 hours from Baton Rouge. Surprisingly, there were no traffic issues. Even when we were driving through storming rain. Once we got to Pearland we made a colossal mistake. Rather than ask my mother in law where we should eat, I asked my brother in law because you know, he LIVES in Pearland. He gave us a couple of options that I wasn't particularly interested in. We didn't have a ton of time & just wanted something like Olive Garden, Chili's, Applebee's. You know, places that have a variety & you know what you're getting. Never saw anything like that. We ended up at a BBQ joint in a strip mall only to find out there was a Chili's by the interstate where we exited. sigh. It wasn't bad but I so didn't want BBQ. Whatevs. We ate & off we went to the game.

Drew is a corner back. I forgot my good camera & I don't have the new iPhone. Oh well.

High school football in Texas is a big deal. Check out the score board. The band even has an 18 Wheeler to cart around the band equipment. Pearland has a pretty good football team. They played for the state championship last year. So, they won Friday night 69-0. Yeh. It was boring. Because of the ridiculously one sided score Drew only played the first half. Oh well. At least we got to see him play.

It wasn't hot at all which was a surprise but it was muggy. Somewhere around half time I decided I needed a Dr. Pepper but I wasn't buying it at the game because they sold 20 ounce bottles & I need ice. Yes I'm a little high maintenance with weird stuff. On our trek through town trying to find food we did see a Sonic. In retrospect that's where we should have eaten. Anyway, on the way back to the hotel we stopped. We waited for 15 minutes for a large D.P. & Sonic Blast. The little guy told us they were shorthanded. No biggie. We didn't have anywhere to go. He brought us our order & at that time informed Dean they were out of spoons. I was being a good wife & putting the straw in Dean's blast so maybe he could eat it while he drove so we were already down the street when I had my first sip of Dr. Pepper. Hmmmm, it tasted a little different. That would be because it was DIET DR PEPPER. UGH! Lucky for Dean the hotel had a spoon because that ice cream was not going through that straw.

I had a 10 mile run scheduled for the weekend. Once I saw where the hotel was I knew there was no way it was happening Sat. The hotel was on a busy highway & I wasn't the least bit interested in running there. Dean's parents were in town too so we all met for lunch Sat. & got to visit with Drew & our niece Camille. I was also able to have a REAL Dr. Pepper. It was fabulous! After lunch we were off to our next stop, our friends in Katy.

Veronica & I have been friends since middle school. They used to live around the corner from us but moved to Texas when Veronica was transferred a couple of years ago. 

The kids have changed sooooo much. Especially the older boys. Abby & Gavin (the 2 little ones) are twins & Abby is our Godchild. We had a fun visit.

Veronica always has great food. Whether she cooked it or bought it & she didn't disappoint.
For those of you that shop at Costco, these dips were soooo good! I especially loved the artichoke jalapeno. We have a new Costco in Baton Rouge but that sucker is like $100 to join & we're already members of Sam's. Everyone tells me it's worth it but I don't know.

Next stop was Kroger. HA! We needed to get gas, some wine & I needed Starbuck's. I would not complain about grocery shopping if we had Starbuck's inside them.


Java Chip Frap with an extra shot & whip. I never get whip. Too many calories but I decided I wanted it. So worth it!

Our final stop was more friends in Katy. Actually, Katie who lives in Katy. We know Katie from back in the day when she played volleyball at LSU. That was back in 2000 when she was just a kid. Now she's married to a great guy & has 2 little cuties.

Riley wasn't sure what to think about us. She warmed up to us but did a lot of staring at us. HA!

This is the best pic we could get. You should've seen us. Katie's making faces & crazy noises while telling me to "KEEP SMILING". Quinn was very interested in the princess shoe she had in her bag. We were a bit of disappointment to Quinn when we got there. When she saw us she looked at her mom & said "where are my friends". When Katie told her our friends are coming over, apparently she expected kids her size! She made the best of it & we played. We ate pizza, drank wine & watched that  beating that was the LSU game. Although, I really thought Les was going to end up winning. It's kinda his M.O.

Sunday morning we all went to Mass & then it was time for us to head home. Needless to say the 10 mi. run didn't happen. I'll deal with that later.  It was such a fun weekend but as usual it went by way too fast.

This morning the alarm surprised me so much that I swear I jumped out of bed before I realized what was happening.
My Garmin was dead when I turned it on. I didn't realize it was on the entire weekend. Oh well, I used my phone & got my 5 miles in. The weather was great. 68 degrees, felt like 73 with the 96% humidity but the dew point was only 69. I thought I would've been faster but I wasn't. Oh well.

Today is the 20 year anniversary of the first episode of Friends! My most favorite show in the whole entire world. The show that I watch on Friday's when I get home from work early. Thank you syndication. The show that I've seen every episode of about 934 times & still laugh like it's the first time. This is also the show that I cried when it ended. I was so sad. Dean laughed at me. In case you can't tell, I'm not over it ending.

Toodles!

Cheers to the Weekend!!

Yay for Friday! The week flew by & I'm glad for that. I know I shouldn't wish my life away but I like weekends. We're off to Houston in a little bit. Crossing my fingers that the interstate isn't a nightmare. Those of you that don't live here may think it's just Baton Rouge, how bad can traffic be? Trust me, it's as bad as cities way bigger. We have "the bridge" & it's newsworthy if there isn't "an incident" on it. Thankfully, I don't have to travel that direction on a daily or even weekly basis. I would probably poke both of my eyes out. 

I thought this was an interesting article.

http://www.sherocksfitnesstx.com/2014/09/08/guest-post-hummusapien/

I had a Dermatologist appointment this week for my yearly skin check. Sadly, I'm pretty white, have moles & used the tanning bed A LOT in my 20's so I've had some "suspicious" moles removed. All was good this appointment but I have these little thingys under one of my eyes. They're skin tags & my Dr. told me she could clip them off which I was all for until she said they could come back or new ones could appear. Lovely. Here's a PSA, if you have lots of them it can be a symptom of diabetes. In my case "it's a sign of aging". Good grief. I could deal with the whole getting older thing if I didn't have crap like this going on. How's this for ironic? My face still break outs! So I'm not too old for break outs but I'm old enough for skin tags? Yet in order to get the meds for break outs my Dr has to jump through hoops & write letters so the insurance company will cover them because I'm over 25. I deal with this every year. You'd think I'd be over it but it annoys me every year. 

I  noticed something weird on Facebook last night. Kids are selling the strangest things. It used to be junky stuff that nobody wanted or wrapping paper or if you were lucky World's Finest Chocolate. Last night 2 different friends posted stuff their kids are selling. Sheets & Fruit Trees. Yes, that's right, bed sheets & fruit trees. WTH? How does one go about delivering fruit trees??  

Yesterday morning I ran. 

I had the hardest time waking up. I didn't hear the alarm & when Dean woke me up I kept saying "what? what?". I was tired all day. 

Last night we went to Caliente for dinner. I know that's shocking. What's really shocking is that we haven't been in 2 weeks. We had stuff going on & couldn't go. No way was I going another weekend without my Mexican fix. I had shrimp tacos & they were delicious! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we can eat at Pappadeaux's at some point this weekend. It's a shame it's not Mardi Gras. They have a king cake dessert. 

Has anyone ever heard of a Swell bottle? I haven't but someone told me about them today. It's supposed to keep your drinks cold for something like 24 hours & hot for 12. Apparently, it's around $35. Just wondering if anyone has one. 

Well, this has been random. 

Have a great weekend!

Toodles!