I got nothin'

My apologies for a very boring blog of late. Work has been insane for the past couple of months and I just haven't had the time to troll about the internets to come up with witty things to write.

So I'm leaving for Texas in less than 48 hours and I'm not ready. The Christmas shopping is not done. Too much still needs to be done at work. By the end of the day 3 unexpected projects landed in my lap and they all need to be done by the 28th. Guess when I'm back in the office? The 28th. Fabulous.

And....I just forgot what I was going to type next so I think I'll just stop now.

Wait. I just remembered....the thought that I might get the extra body pat down at the airport on Thursday is totally freaking me out.

At least it's supposed to be warmer in Texas this year so hopefully I won't freeze in my sister's house like I did last year.

It's 8am...

Schools are canceled due to snow/sleet so it's okay for me to be late to work...right?

Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

My new favorite Christmas songs

All I want for Christmas

No, not a hippopotamus. People have been asking what I want for Christmas and unfortunately, the things I want are not things they can be easily purchased. Here's a sample of things I want:

• To never hear Taylor Swift on the radio again
• To be warm at work (today I work a long sleeve shirt, a long sleeve sweater and a cardigan with a scarf. Also my pink puffy coat and gloves for half the day)
• For my hair to never ever be frizzy again and to always look awesome
• Long, dark eyelashes
• A one story house that is self cleaning, with a fenced in year that is self raking

When?

When did The Office turn into a show that is uncomfortable to watch? I know I know, fictional characters and all but Michael Scott is just so socially stunted that I'm embarrassed for him.

Baby it's cold outside

The Boyfriend is probably shaking his head at me right now. He's from Ohio, so this cold weather is like nothing to him. But as you all know, I'm freezing. As I leave for work this morning, I'm wearing tights under my pants and an extra shirt under my sweater. I feel a bit like a stuffed sausage. Or like Randy, from A Christmas Story, when he goes outside in he snow suit. However, if it keeps me warm it's worth it.

The iPhone is dirty dirty!

Have you heard of this new blog, Damn You Auto Correct? Be prepared to laugh like a fool in front of your computer. The predictive text and auto correcting on the iPhone can make for some pretty funny texts.

Personally, I haven't sent anything crazy (at least I don't think I have). Mostly just bad typos.

How bad could it be?

This afternoon I got my first speeding ticket in North Carolina. I knew better. It's a holiday weekend. But you know me, Leadfoot Lizzy. Anyway, I do not understand this whole "points" thing they have here because I never heard of any points when I was in Texas.

In Texas, when you get a ticket, you suffer through Defense Driving and then the ticket doesn't go on your insurance. From what I can tell, that is not an option here. The State Trooper told me that if my driving record was clean (it is, at least in NC. My last ticket in Texas was in 2007) I could go to court on an appointed date in January and ask for leniency. Who knows what that really means.

But really, how bad could it be for the ticket to go on my record? When I ran over that guy in the parking lot* my rates barely went up.

*Relax, he was fine. I backed into him when he walked behind my car.

PS...I was not going 167. If I had been I would be posting from inside the Wake County jail.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm skating in just under the wire here to make this still be a Thanksgiving day post. I hope you all had a very delicious day. The Boyfriend and I had a low key meal of turkey pot pies, stove top stuffing, corn bread casserole, roasted Brussel sprouts and, of course, pumpkin pie.

This has been a great year and I have much to be thankful for.

Getting crazy up in here

Have you heard about Four Loko? Several states have already banned it and North Carolina is working on it. The FDA is also trying to ban this malt liquor caffienated energy drink nationwide. Why? Because people are stupid and must be saved from themselves. What's next? Nike shoes because they make you run too fast? ANYway. It's been all over the news here, because there is nothing the Raleigh news likes better than to overhype a story, so you know it made me want to try it.


First, let me preface this by saying, I am not a big drinker. If Four Loko had been around during my college days this could have gone a whole 'nother way though. I can definitely see how this would have been a big hit.

So last night The Boyfriend and I found a gas station that still had some of the drink on their shelves. We bought a couple of cans. He got blueberry and I got cranberry lemonade. Sounds delicious, right? Yeah, no. There is a reason the kids are chugging these....they taste like ass. I could only drink about half of mine. I didn't feel drunk, exactly, but I sure didn't feel good. Me and malt liquor don't mix. This morning I'm feeling a bit rough. I'll stick to my Jack and Coke, thanks.

Googling for links to put in this post led me to this blog. It's pretty funny. You should read it.

Almost time to decorate for Christmas!

And you know what that means! Time to add to my dachshund ornament collection. Yes, I'm *that* person. But how cute are these little guys from Crate & Barrel?

Kids these days...

Last night, The Boyfriend and I went to see the new Harry Potter movie. I've read all the books but The Boyfriend has only seen the movies so he didn't know how the story was going to go. I'm sort of bummed for him that his enjoyment of the film might have been disturbed by all the idiots in the theater.

I wish I could say it was just the junior high girls, with their giggling at a shirtless Harry, or crying over Dobby (really, over a house elf? come on), or pointing at the screen. But no, the adult couple sitting next to him were texting away on their iphones. At least dim the screen, people.

At one point during the film, The Boyfriend did lean over and ask the junior high girls next to me to be quiet. He said it much nicer than I would have, which is probably why I just kept my mouth shut. By the time the movie was over I was seething. After the movie, the girls ended up behind me in line for the bathroom but since I'm an adult I decided to be the bigger person and not give them swirlies.

Brrrr

Maybe I should get on with my knitting.

I've been informed

Recently I was informed that I need to do more things so that I have something to blog about. I suppose eating a Blizzard for dinner while sitting on the sofa watching The Biggest Loser doesn't make very interesting reading. Nor does telling you how I went to Panera for a late lunch and then sat there for a while and read on my Nook some. On the way home there was a stop at the hardware store. Then Dairy Queen for the Blizzard and now here we are.

Rock you like a hurricane

This past weekend The Boyfriend and I went to watch the Carolina Hurricanes play some hockey. It was my first time at a professional sporting event and I had a great time. Of course, it helped that the 'Canes won.

During the intermission between the 2nd and 3rd periods my company sponsored the entertainment, which was a contest of musical chairs.

Decked out in appropriate fanwear

Perhaps I've mentioned....

Starbucks vs the Old Spice Guy

It's Wrong

Wrong wrongity wrong. It's the first weekend in November and one of the local malls already has Santa visiting so you can line up for photo ops with your kids. I'm all for cute holiday photos with kids (and pets too!) but come on! Can we at least have Thanksgiving first?

However, my outrage is not going to stop me from going to Home Depot this weekend to pick up a new 6 1/2 foot pre-lit Christmas tree that's on sale. It will be staying in the box until the Friday after Thanksgiving though. That is the first official day it's Okay to put up Christmas decor.

I have a new addiction

I used to play Bejeweled, years ago, but moved on to other internet pursuits. But then The Boyfriend kept talking about this Bejeweled thing on Facebook and curiosity got the better of me. The fact that I can play it on my iphone does not help at all. I spent all last weekend trying to beat his high score only to have the contest start over again right after I did. Currently, he's ahead of me again. Two nights in a row I've had dreams about the game where I had awesome amazing wins. Sad. It's a sad sad life I lead.

Ok Go

Ok Go always has the best videos.

Lunch

Today I went to lunch at La Farm Bakery, in Cary. They were recently mentioned in the October issue of Cooking Light magazine and I've had things from there before, when someone brought treats into the office, so I thought it was time I actually made a visit. It's a cute little place, decorated to look like what I imagine a French bakery must look like (although I wouldn't know would I, since I've never been to France). Their menu is quite varied and I was pretty hungry so I had a hard time deciding what to try. Finally,the chicken salad croissant won out.



I wish the chicken had been shredded or chopped finer, instead of in chunks, but it was very good. Also, they served it with a side of homemade potato chips with buttermilk ranch dip.

A+. Would dine again.

My new career

The other night we went to the state fair and while there went to the demolition derby. Ladies and Gentlemen, I have found my new career! Demolition Derby Driver. It was totally awesome to watch those guys drive their cars into each other, on purpose even.





These are the V-6s. They were my favorites. The wheel even came off one car but the driver kept going!









The loudest cheering was always when there was a big hit or smoke started pouring out of the car.

We went to the mountains

Last weekend I met my parents in the mountains of North Carolina and we stayed at a cute little cabin. It's all fun and games until you fall down the stairs in the dark taking the dog for a walk. My leg hurts and looks like I got in a fight with a bat.

On Monday we took a drive to Blowing Rock.





I had to go back to work but later in the week my parents went to check out Grandfather Mountain. My dad took these photos. Wish I could have been there too!

We're gonna need a bigger boat!

Last Friday, The Boyfriend and I went to dinner at Thai's Noodles, a new-ish place near my house/our offices. It was delicious.



Oh yeah, there were 3 other people eating with us...so don't think we ate all that sushi by ourselves!

Today I was craving sushi so we went there for lunch. Delicious again! I had the hurricane and volcano rolls, bringing half home for dinner (which I'm enjoying now as I type this). What can I say, I like foods named after natural disasters. But let me tell you something...these are way spicier tonight than they were this afternoon. I need some tums and a giant glass of milk now!

It's ten o'clock, do you know where your parents are?

Mine are on their way to see me (and Lulu too) in North Carolina. We're meeting at a cabin in the mountains on Sunday where they'll be spending the next week. Unfortunately, Lulu and I can only stay for a couple of nights. Still I am very much looking forward to it!

There is no other word for it...

The NC State fair is starting later this week so I was looking up some info about it and ran across the lists of new foods that would be available. I was excited to see deep fried frito pie since my sister had that at the Texas state fair and said it was delicious. But what has me blogging this morning is the Krispy Kreme burger.

A hamburger between 2 Krispy Kreme donuts. Gross! Even my most PMS driven cravings would not make me want that.

Get the cheese!

Oh go on! I like my cheese but these people REALLY like their cheese. The description of this video is as follows:
Gloucestershire Cheese Rolling 2009 video highlights from http://www.soglos.com - filmed on Monday 25 May 2009. Every year daring competitors throw themselves down a death-defyingly steep hill in Gloucestershire, England, in a bid to win a coveted Double Gloucester cheese, and this year's event was no different - with a number of competitors incurring injuries. Local cheese rolling legend Chris Anderson won 2 of the 5 races on the day, and can be seen in the video sporting his usual bright green top and flying past the camera.

Ramen....it's what's for dinner

Yay!

Baaaaa

like a sheep following the rest of the herd I think I need to get into this Silly Bandz craze. It's all my aunt's fault. She posted on Facebook how she wanted some Texas shaped ones and someone posted a link....

which then led me to find NCAA licensed (what won't they license to get our money?) Silly Bandz for Texas Tech:

and Ohio State. I do wonder exactly what is that green leaf supposed to be. It looks suspiciously like a marijuana leaf to me.

And I found some Texas A&M ones:

Lastly, of course I couldn't leave out the local schools:

Duke Blue Devils

UNC Tarheels

NC State Wolfpack

This may be one of the most juvenile blog posts I've ever written.

oh yeah, they had university of texas ones too but you know my thoughts on that. So you can Google them up yourself if you really want them. All images courtesy of Amazon.com.

I jump in it

My sister clued me into this commercial



Opulence.
I has it.

Now where's my tiny giraffe? I think Lulu needs a playmate.

Inspiring

I really need to get back to running. Twice in one month does not a runner make.

Oh yeah, this is post 1000. wooooo!

Look what I got in the mail today

My medal for doing two 1/2 marathons!



ps: this my 999th post! Maybe I should do something fancy for post 1000?

My birthday is coming...

and I think I'm going to celebrate by getting a new tattoo. For sometime now I've been wanting a new one and for a while I was thinking of something dachshund related. That will probably still happen, eventually. But for now I've decided to get one commemorating the running of three 1/2 marathons.

Originally I was thinking a crown, for the triple crown, but I couldn't find a good example of one so I moved on from that idea and decided on stars. Three stars. One for each race. So this morning I spent a couple of hours googling up star images and looking at tattoo web sites. Stars are pretty basic but I was hoping for inspiration. So what did I find? A crown.

See, this is why I can't have nice things. I can never make up my mind.

Guns Up

It's that time of year again, when I just have to say:

Texas Tech plays UT at 8pm EST tomorrow.

I think you know where my loyalties lie.

Ticket prices explained

I'm trying to book my flight back to Texas for Christmas and it's killing me that it's going to cost me nearly $500. At least now I know why!

From cracked.com

Edit: Yay for Southwest Airlines! I was able to book a ticket for under $400 and my bags get to fly for free.


Austin peeps, mark your calendars now if you want to have dinner on 12/23 (preferably at Rudy's or Chuy's).

Lulu has a new love

and when he's around it's like I don't exist.

So bored

and so unmotivated to do anything today. So far I have watched 3 episodes of Weeds using the Netflix app on my iPhone, finished reading a book on my Nook, and taken Lulu for a long walk. Now I don't know what to do. I don't want to go shopping, I'm tired of reading and nothing on tv is holding my attention.

I supposed I could start knitting again...

I bought shoes!

They had some time on their hands

The Race

So continuing my fine tradition, yesterday's race was run on 3 1/2 hours sleep and with killer heartburn. Apparently, I am not meant to have a pre-race dinner of a pasta with red sauce. Next time I'll stick with mac & cheese. The heartburn lasted the entire race and didn't go away until I hobbled across the street to buy overpriced antacids at a beach souvenir shop.

Still, even with all that, I kicked ass on my race. I shaved 4 minutes off my Seattle time and I even stopped to pee (and that took like 3 minutes because my running pants are so tight). However, I did want to die a little when I was done.



No more half marathons for me. Now I'm going to concentrate on getting my 5k time down and actually be able to run for more than 3 minutes at a time.

And I'm off like a herd of turtles

on my way to Virginia Beach. Which was spared by Hurricane Earl. Yay.

They did not teach me this in dance class

About 10 years ago I got this wild idea that I should take tap dancing classes. And so I did, through the University of Texas (and no, that does not make me a longhorn, bite your tongue). Anyway, I did not have enough rhythm and coordination to do even the basic steps, much less dance like this.

One Month

A lot can happen in a month. You can lose 5 pounds, you can win the lottery, you can follow your favorite band across the country or you can start to fall in love. I've only done one of these things in the last month.

In one month I will be 37.
Seriously, how does that happen?

Race music

I'm being optimistic that Hurricane Earl is going to take a turn and pass Virginia Beach by. Also that my sinus infection thing will clear up in the next couple of days, because running with clogged ears will be a bitch. Plus I'll have to turn my ipod up to eleven!!11.

So I'm working on crafting the perfect playlist and thought I'd share some with you. Some are new to me and some are just faves. No judging.

Bruno Mars- Just the Way You Are. Watch more top selected videos about: Just the way you are, Just the Way You Are

There's also a whole lot of Britney (in her trashy phase), 80s and early 90s one hit wonders and twangy you-broke-my-heart-so-now-I'm-gonna-kilt-yer-dawg type country. Don't judge my music until you've run 13.1 miles in a hurricane.

Why?!

What is it with me and hurricanes? Argh. Despite my best intentions I haven't made it to the beach all summer and I just want to spend Friday and Saturday laying on the beach working on my tan and reading trashy books.

Hurricane Earl is threatening to ruin my Labor Day vacation. I know I haven't trained for this 1/2 marathon as well as I should have but I swear I didn't pray for a hurricane to wipe things out.

In a pinch

Here's a tip I bet you won't read on Hints From Heloise:

If you just need to iron the hem of something and don't want to drag out your iron and ironing board, just use your flat iron! It works really great if you are already wearing the item in question. Just be careful not to burn yourself.

There's a new app in town

The official Netflix app for the iPhone came out recently and it is awesome . It streams the "watch now" videos right to the phone. No longer do I have to sit at my desk to catch up on Weeds. Now I can do it from the comfort of my recliner, just like I watch all my other television.
Seriously I was almost as excited about this app, which is free but I would have paid for it, as I was when I found out The Container Store is opening in Raleigh.