My new ringtone

Have you all seen this commercial? I hope so. It's one of my faves. My sister Jen texted me the song today so it's now my new ringtone. If you're a verizon customer and want it too, email me your cell number and I'll text it to you (I don't think it will work unless you're verzion.) Anyway, it makes me laugh whenever anyone calls me. LOVE IT!! Thanks, Jen!

Irritations / Non Irritations

The things that are irritating me today are:

• The conversion to digital TV. I realized last night that my beloved TiVo is basically going to be a VCR after June 12. I can only record one show at a time AND I have to stay on that channel while it's recording. How fantastic is that?
• Grown women who talk like little girls at work. Why? It doesn't make them look smart at all.
• Trying to come up with a graduation card to make for the millions of graduating seniors I love. Okay, I might be exaggerating on the number just a tad but still - it's a lot and I have no creative juices.
• Trying to eat healthy. Eating non-healthy is just simpler.
• Being asked why I'm not married yet. Love, love, love that question. Okay, no I hate it.

The things that are not irritating me today are:

• The weather. It's been sunny and beautiful all week and it's supposed to reach 80 by Friday.
• The fact that I didn't cough all night last night for the first time since Thursday.
• I'm going away for the second weekend in row. This time I'm going to a cabin a bit south of here with a friend to celebrate my birthday. I love having a birthday that never ends.
• How I feel when I eat more healthy. It's good.
• Seeing Mt. Rainier as I drive home. It's stunningly beautiful and reminds me how great it is to live where I live (found the photo on google images -- but this is exactly how it looked today.)
  
  

Holiday Weekend Perfection

What I did this weekend:

• Had dinner with two friends on Friday night, one of whom now lives in Australia. It had been almost three years since I last saw Sara and it was wonderful catching up, even though it wasn't long enough.
• Drove to Portland Saturday morning with Michelle. We stayed at a really nice hotel on the Columbia River. The weather was absolutely perfect -- high 70s and sunny.
• We stopped at some outlets on the way and I bought new clothes for summer. Yay!
• We visited the Saturday Market - super crowded and not really our thing but fun for people watching. Tons of tattoos, dogs and passed out people.
• We visited our second favorite Portland area mall, Washington Square (I love Clackamas the most.) We went to Williams-Sonoma where I spent my birthday money on a RED Le Creuset (Oregon has no sales tax - ours is 9.5% so it was like it was on sale. Almost.)
• We took the trolley into downtown and shopped, shopped and shopped some more. We experienced Anthropologie for the first time ever, which was very fun. We checked out the half yearly sale at Nordstrom, went to Macy's where I went a little crazy. Fabulous sales.
• We saw Star Trek. LOVED IT! I seriously seriously seriously love Chris Pine. Yum.
• I coughed so much at night. It was horrible. I tried everything to stop it and nothing worked. I haven't had a good night's sleep for the last three nights because of it. But I feel better overall.
• While we were in the hotel room, we watched a lot of the Jon & Kate Plus 8 marathon. I'd never watched that show before this weekend and I have to say Kate is mean. Jon has his moments too but Kate is so rude to her husband. And Maddie, one of the older twins, is a total mini-Kate, and that is not a compliment. I hope for their family's sake, they go into some sort of therapy. I also think they should stop doing the show so they can work on putting their family back together.

And finally, if you are a praying sort of person, will you please say a prayer for my blogging friend Michelle (not to be confused with the Michelle I spent my weekend with.) Michelle's mom is fighting liver cancer and they could all use your prayers. Thank you...

Chastity Cupcakes

The day before my birthday, I went to my friend Boni's house to do some card-making & die-cutting. She surprised me with a plate of cupcakes with this cute little C in them. Read this link and you'll understand why I laughed. Love you, Boni!

The I'm Sick Entry

I'm sick.

Cough. Sniff.

Have I mentioned that I'm sick?

I don't think it's "that" flu but it's the low grade fever/sneezy/coughing kind of sick. The kind of sick that keeps you home from work because you want to be healthy for the long, sunny, holiday weekend kind of sick.

What I've been doing while I've been sick: catching up on my TiVo'd shows, downloading stuff from iTunes, a little bit of work, sleeping, doing laundry and playing Peggle on my iPod. I haven't felt much like reading, strangely enough. Maybe after I finish this.

I loved the AI Finale last night. The performances were so great and it was such a fun surprise to see Kris win. I'm not worried about Adam's career - he'll be fine.

Did anyone watch Glee? I'm thinking I'm going to love it based solely on the music. I already bought the two songs (Rehab and Don't Stop Believin') and I downloaded the premiere for free (love iTunes.)

I'm very excited for So You Think You Can Dance which premieres tonight. If you haven't watched it before, try it out tonight.

I'm going on a little trip this weekend with my friend Michelle. This Sunday would have been/should have been her husband Rick's 51st birthday so we're getting away to celebrate. We'll be seeing Star Trek because he would love that. We'll also shop, soak up the sun and watch movies in our hotel room because what he would love most is for Michelle to be happy.

So let me know...did you watch Glee? Are you going to watch SYTYCD? Are you doing anything fun this weekend? Entertain me while I'm in my sickbed, please.

Updates: gift cards, my health and the Bachelorette

Gift Cards: I currently have $65 to spend at Amazon (yay, books for my Kindle!) and $100 to spend at Williams-Sonoma. Sweet!

Health: I really don't want to admit this or put it in writing because then I'm acknowledging it but I have a cold. Boo hiss. Thankfully, I bought a 4 pack of Puffs Plus tissues last night.

Bachelorette: This show takes a few weeks before I really know if I'm going to like it or not but I of course have some opinions to share after watching the season premiere. Jillian bugged me a lot last year but not quite as much last night. That of course could change. And can I just say there were TOO many guys on last night's show??? It was crazy and like 92% of them had dark hair so I couldn't keep any of them straight. A few of the likable standouts for me were Juan from Argentina, Sasha with the grandkid-hungry mother, cool-named Kiptyn and Jake the pilot. A few of the unlikable standouts were freaky foot fetishist Tanner, fitness model who is trying to force a nickname Greg and I drive a fancy car so it means I'm a total stud Julien.

Should we start a pool as to when the first kiss will happen??? Next week or the week after?

Birthday summary

Okay, my birthday, so far, has been wonderful and sad. I'll explain.


On Friday, my fabulous friend Krysta gave me a gift card to Red Robin and a box full of cookies. Not just any box -- this box!



Fun, huh? My boss gave me a gift card to Williams Sonoma. I long to own an overpriced dutch oven like the one below. I just have to decide which color.

As I mentioned earlier, my sweet sister Jenilee came up to help me frost sugar cookies for the shower favors and then we stayed up watching TV shows we love (is it sad that I'm so excited about the out of wedlock pregnancy on the Office? Yes, it is.) After Callie's bridal shower, these darling boys washed my car for me. I love a clean car when it's sunny and beautiful outside.


The weather has been perfect all weekend -- 75-80 degrees. Just lovely.


Later in the afternoon, my family and I went to Panera for lunch. I don't think any of them had been there before so it was great to see them love it as much as I do. One of my nephews got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and he marveled how it was "mostly jelly." Apparently, that's a good thing. Here's a picture of Jen and me. We're laughing because whenever I get ready for a picture, I make a little humming noise in the back of my throat. I don't know why but I have to think about it so I don't do it.


My sister Jana drove down to surprise me (she lives an hour away.) Here she is with Makenna & Natalie.



After lunch, we drove to Mom's house to hang out for a bit (here comes the sad part.) We were sitting out on the patio, enjoying the beautiful afternoon, watching the kids play. I asked one of my sisters to take a picture of me with one of my nieces. I handed her my beautiful, four month old camera (the camera I seriously love and bought with my Christmas gift card.) I saw her hand go up to take the camera from me (or so I thought) and I stupidly let the camera go and dropped it on the cement patio.




See the dented lens? Sigh. It won't open, close, focus, nothing. I just cried and cried. My sister Jaylene was so sweet and hugged me as I cried (she's not a big hugger so that made me cry more.) My mom and sisters immediately said they'd all chip in for a new camera so we went out to Costco but they no longer have cameras like mine. We got home and I left again to pick up Lynda and we met Kim and Callie down at Sam's and guess what? Sam's had my camera. PHEW! It's exactly the same except it has a blue matte finish instead of the smooth black finish of my old one.



After Sam's, we went to California Pizza Kitchen. YUM! I stepped out of my BBQ chicken chopped salad comfort zone and Lynda and I split a BLT pizza. It was pure heaven. Seriously.


Later we went back to Lynda's for a yummy birthday cake from Cold Stone (thank you Kim!)


Kim also gave me this beautiful new purse. The color didn't come through but it's a gorgeous red leather. I love it so much!



Tomorrow night is dinner with three of my dearest, longtime girlfriends plus I have two other nights out later this week. I love a birthday that lasts and lasts.