Short Timer

 

Cute, right?  Too bad she's bad.

You all know about my animal hoarding.  You can imagine Kurt's random comments about the animals.  I have to admit they are pretty funny (secretly he likes them, I know it).  Kurt's not a man of many words but the things he does say are HILARIOUS.  And he normally doesn't crack a smile at his own jokes, which makes them even funnier.

OMG.  So, I came out at 4am the other a.m.  Georgia had thrown up on the threshold between the kitchen linoleum and the very light beige carpet of the living room.  "*&^("  OMG.  It was like red.  And it was a lot.  Again, "%#$!!!!!!!!!!"  It was like 1/2 on the kitchen floor, 1/2 on the carpet.  OMFG dog, can't you just throw up 100% in the kitchen.  Ugh!  So I make a half-ditch effort to clean it up.  I get back into bed and knowing Kurt's about to hear the cockadoodledoo (farmboy), I told him Georgia threw up on the carpet but "don't be mad at her, it's not her fault." 

He gets up, comes back in to give me a kiss (no job = effing awesome).  He, very calmly, goes, "Oh by the way, Georgia threw up on your new purse.  'Don't be mad at her.  It's not her fault.'"  I had to give it to him, that was hilarious.

When I saw the throw up on my brand new handbag, I texted him and said, "If she throws up on my L.A.M.B. again, I'll kill her."
His response:  "Hope she does." 

hahaha.

Winter Wonderland

Q: On a scale of 1 to 10, how much easier is the winter when you don't have to leave the house?

A: 50 Billion.

OMG, I have always despised winter in the worst way. Not overly a fan of Fall or Spring either. I really would be happiest in Southern Florida, or better yet, somewhere right on the equator. I am one of those weirdos that doesn't want or need a/c in the house. I lovvvve humidity.

HOWEVER, now that I don't have to leave the house if I don't want to :), and I don't have to wear freakin' dress clothes and heels, and I can bundle up to no end and leave it all on at my destination (aka usually the mall), winter is cool. We have made peace. Thanks, husb...of course, I couldn't be at home right now without that guy <3

I'm gonna sit here, feed Will some cheerios and admire the sparkly snow (from the couch). yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Holla.
Love~Ann

Wow.

So I only made it 10 days...

OR should I say: Wow! I made it 10 days!!

Tres Lame.

Hmmmm...what's been goin' down..

Nada mucho! Tons of super cute photo shoots and continuing to do lots of trainings. Set up a sweet studio! Life is good :) Except the fact it gets DARK at seriously 5pm. Ugggggghhhhhh...

Looking forward to the winter and snuggling it up with my lil' Cashew and rarely leaving the house :) :) Yahhhhh!

It's been about 8 months or so, so I feel another workout kick coming on. Likely, it will just be long enough to remind me that I never did see that orthopedic surgeon about my knee. HAHA! Oh well...if I'm going to a surgeon to go under the knife...trust me, it will be something COSMETIC. Not so I can RUN MORE and cause myself more agony!? Hehe.

LOVE.TO.ALL!
ann :)

Day 10 - Swap (Recipe for Photo)

I am switching out Day 10 for "Recipe Day" because I am making it and it's out. Plus, Kate (pictured below) wants this recipe. And it smells mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm good. Yah, it's soup! It's delciious, makes a ton and I've made it several times. YUM YUM YUM!

Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Soup/Chili (Called soup but more like a chili)

Prep Time: 15 mins
Cook Time: 7 hrs
Ready In: 7 hrs 15 mins

Ingredients:

1 onion, chopped
1 (16 oz) can chili beans
1 (15 oz) can black beans
1 (15 oz) can whole kernel corn, drained
1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce
1 (12 oz) can or bottle beer
2 (10oz) cans of tomatoes with green chilies, UNDRAINED
1 (1.25 oz) package taco seasoning
3 whole skinless,boneless chicken breasts (or, obviously 6 halves)
Shredded Cheddar Cheese (opt but recommended)
Sour Cream (opt but recommended)
Crushed Tortilla Chips (opt but yum)

Directions (so easy):
1. Place onion, chili beans, black beans,corn, tomato sauce, beer and diced tomatoes in slow cooker. Add taco seasoning and stir to blend. Lay chix breasts on top of mixture, pressing down slightly until just covered by the other ingredients. Set slow cooker for low heat, cover and cook for 5 hours. Your house will smell delicious ALL DAY!

2. After 5 hrs, remove chix breasts from the soup and allow to cool long enough to be handled. Shred the chicken (I use two forks. It's a pain, but worth it). Stire the chicken back into the soup, and continue cooking for 2 hours.

Serve in bowl topped with shredded cheese, dollop of sour cream and some crushed tortilla chips. I also throw chopped some green onions on the top for color (plus, I like them) but you don't have to.

Enjoy this muy, muy deliciouso soup!!!!!!! It's so good, it may inspire you to have soup holidays, serving this and other kinds of soups instead of turkey, ham, etc... :) :)

Love,
Ann

Day 9 – a photo you took

Uhhh, I've taken like 10,000 photos this year. Such pressure!!!



So, I have two rockin' cameras (I mainly only use the one) but I shoot photos in RAW. So, editing them is an ordeal. I decided my kids ALSO need random snapshots of their life, so I use my G9 to take random house pics of them. One of the memory cards is in right now, so I scrolled through...

This is a pic of my friend Kate :) Taken when we picked out our friend Jeri's wedding dress back in Feb or Mar! OMG, that seems like YESTERDAY! Look how little Will was :) My baby!!

Kate will also make a cameo appearance in tomorrow's photo. Stay tuned. HAHA! It's a good one!!

Love,
Moi :)

PS - Kate and Will are super cute! But since I worked on the real photos all day, this picture itself looks like hell compared to those! God, so underexposed!! I used to love my G9, too!

Day 8 - Photo of Saddness!! :(

Fair 2009.

I've talked about my lovely, beloved, wonderful, amazing, awesome Grandma on the blogs before. She came to see Belle show a calf at the Fair last year. Two months later, we lost her. Yeah, this photo makes me so, so, so sad.

RIP!! Love you, Gram Grams!

Ann

PS - Sorry for the delay! I couldn't think of an angry/sad photo so I just went with a sad!

Day 7 - Photo of Happiness

I have 22,000 photos of my rug rats :) Still in RAW format. I WILL get them into jpeg this winter...and get caught up (yeah right!)... No, seriously, they do make me happy BUT I have so, so, so many, I could never choose JUST ONE!?

In all seriousness, I am going to post a photo that makes me swoon with love. You may think it's lame, boring, etc...I don't know. I ADORE IT. I took it yesterday at an extremely lovely and wonderful wedding.

Why do I love thee??

I have always noticed, loved and appreciated the little details of weddings. And I have always TRIED to capture them to no avail with my sporty lil' G9 (lol). I'm soooooo, sooooooo, soooooooo HAPPY I have the training and equipment to do take photos EXACTLY. LIKE. THIS:

I am also happy I finally got the bride's rings to balance in there. Thank you, rings!

I spent lots of years at a desk, feeling like I should be somewhere else doing something much more fabulous than accounting...something kinda artsy-ish that people actually gave a damn about. Ahhhh...love....

Day 6 – 20 of my favorite things

I am going to exclude the EXTREMELY obvious: people, pets and my orthodontic work.



1. My wedding ring.

2. My engagement ring.

3. My pearls the husb gave me on our wedding day.

4. My camera. And my lenses that go with it.

5. My L.A.M.B. bag. I've carried it the longest. Not sure why? I am still not even in the market for a new bag and it's been almost a year! Is it true love?

6. My Louis Vuitton bag. I haven't carried it since getting the L.A.M.B., but I shall!

7. My music collection (see Blog Challenge Original Post)

8. Any and all photos in my possession, printed or digital.

9. MY MAKEUP COLLECTION. See my makeup blog for additional information.

10. All of the vacations I've taken with the husb. He's hilarious. Too bad I quit my job and the vacas were the first to go. LOL.

11. My John Deere audit staff days, the amazing places it showed me and the wonderful, awesome, forever friends it made me.

12. Expensive denim. My new R&R jeans, specifically. Thank you, Josh, for verifying they are cool.

13. All of the littles notes and pictures Belle made me. I save them ALL.

14. Five Star Facials. And massages.

15. My house. We live in the middle of nowhere and it's the most calming, peaceful, wonderful place ever. And I get to see the farmboy drive tractors and combines and whatnot around on the weekends. It's awesome.

16. Barn Dances. I really want to have an anniversary party.

17. This blog challenge. It's seriously pretty fun. Thanks, Laura!

18. The fact I'm not working right now. Being a stay at home mom is ****ing AWESOME. ;)

19. DIET COKE. DIET PEPSI. DIET MOUNTAIN DEW. DIET DR. PEPPER. DIET CHERRY PEPSI.

20. My bed. It's like a cloud.



Just to mix it up a little, and because my posts from the past couple days have been short...I shall say 20 things I hate, as well :)



1. The Progressive Car Insurance lady. I would feel really bad if she knew I said this, because I don't know her, but I still hate her.

2. How The Gap, The Limited, Old Navy, etc all ask if I want a credit card. As much as I shop, it's seriously the most annoying thing ever. I stopped going to the Limited Southpark because I can't stand those girls. Hello, I had all the credit cards I wanted by age 22. Then, I had to spend time getting rid of them so my wallet didn't continue to weigh 42 lbs. No, I do not want any more cards...business, credit, punch, etc.

3. Glade air freshener, especially plug-ins and those fake gel candles. This just made me realize I should have included "Scentsy" in the 20 Favorites. My house is filled with the sweet smells of Scentsy right now.

4. The fact I haven't gone to yoga. I'm starting to really get pissed at myself for this. I love yoga. Tapas Yoga Shala and Indigo should totally be in the top 20 with Scentsy!!

5. (Most) Italian Food. Marinara-ish stuff is not my favorite. I am more of a super-spicy Thai person.

6. Shots. UGH. Cannot stand hard alcohol. Except the tequila hiding in my margaritas.

7. Red wine. I think it tastes like bacon...which I also hate. My friend Kates makes fun of me all the time. She works at a wine store and I bought some Cranberry wine from her the other day. I told her I couldn't believe I bought red wine. Then, she informed me, I bought white wine that happens to be red. lol. Oops.

8. The song "Celebrity" by Brad Paisley. No offense to Brad, as I love many of his other songs. F. Now I have that song in my head!

9. That Belle will be a Lancer. No offense to the Lancers...I am just a die-hard Falcon. GO WEST.

10. June bugs. Ew. And centipedes. Eeew! I don't mind spiders, though.

11. Getting my tattoos lasered off. Oh yeah, it hurts. Fortunately, I don't have to do it anymore. Ahhh...getting Betty Boop tattooed on my ankle at age 17 was so much fun! ;)

12. Politics. I know it's important. Sorry, but it's true: I hate politics.

13. Skinny jeans. Love them on others; cannot stand the thought of wearing them around my ankles. And no, not because I'm trying to show off the remnants of Betty Boop.

14. Running. Dear Running, I want to like you but I hate you. Love, Moi

15. The fact I type a million words per minutes and never spell-check or proof-read before I post.

16. RJ Boars.

17. The lobster tank at Red Lobster. I mean, is this necessary?

18. Haunted Houses. I am just not a fan. Scary!! I don't like anything scary - horror movies, etc.

19. Rides that spin: Silly Silo, Gravatron, those chairs that swing around in a huge circle, The Sizzler, etc, etc, etc. Ugh.

20. Putting laundry away. I don't mind doing it but putting away IS HORRIBLE!!!!!!!

Love,
Ann :)

Day 5 - Favorite Quote

Huge quote person. Lovvvve them.

My faves =

"Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the cornfield." -Dwight D. Eisenhower

"If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons." -James Thurber

"The more you photograph, the more you realize what can and what can't be photographed. You just have to keep doing it." -Eliot Porter

Day 4 - Post #2 - Randomness

OMG, I know.

I had seriously just deleted my blog information from my Facebook last week because I was like - I never write, so I assume no one ever reads, so I shall delete. I may need to make a grand re-entrance.

I just wanted to point out how much I love not working. It's soooo freaking great. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FREAKING GREAT. I was a working accountant mom for almost ten years (omg) so I will NEVER, EVER take this relaxed life for granted. I would NEVER want to go back to the rushing around in the a.m.'s and tired brain-frazzled evenings! Love love love my husband for agreeing to this situation :)

I also wanted to point out how annoying The Today Show is. Seriously, they go over the same things over and over and over. I love how they constantly have "Health Advice" givers on and they say the same things: "Drink lots of water!" (with a photo of a glass of water in the background)..."Exercise 3 times per week!" (photo of person walking through a park in the background)...."Eat fruits and veggies (photo of banana and carrot in background). I mean seriously...everyone watching right now knows this. Give me some new tips I can really use. How can I make Diet Coke be considered "healthy" or how will facials prolong my life??

I noticed all of my grandparents or Kurt's mom or whoever stays home just parks the show on Channel 6. I always thought, omg I want to watch The Today Show, too. Ya know, just have it on while I'm doing miscellaneous "what nots" around the house with no plans or needs to go anywhere except the grocery store. And have the smell of coffee yummying up the air, like they always did. The only problem is that I hate coffee but I may take up drinking it just to have the full effect.

I have no idea how this post went down that road. LOL.

HAPPPPPPY FRIIIIIDAY!

Love,
Ann :)

Day 4 – your favorite book

OMG, I used to read obsessively prior to having the rugratos. All through elementary, junior high, high school and college.

The book that always sticks out as my favorite is Needful Things by Stephan King. Maybe I'll read it again and figure out why since I haven't read it for like 17 years.

Love,
Ann

Day 3 – your favorite television program

Golden Girls.

I loved it when I was 7 and watched it all the time with my Grandma, until I got old enough to have a driver's license and stopped staying the night with her. I'd do anything to go spend some more nights hanging out with her.

I loved it when I was 23 and lived with Belle's Grandma while Belle's dad was overseas. We watched it alll the time. So much fun!

I loved it when I could finally get it on DVD! I have all the boxes sets!

I loved it when I was on Maternity Leave this year and watched it at all hours of the night!

I still love it now that I'm home during the day and watching daytime tv :) :) :)

It's the greatest show ever.

The second greatest show ever is Jersey Shore. I'm just sayin'. Gotta go GTL.

Love y'all!
Ann

WT# - Photo deleted from Day 2 Post??? Grrr.

Here it is...

=LOVE

Day 2 - Favorite Movie

Absolutely no question about this one:



The End.

Love,
Ann

Day 1 - Your Favorite Song

If you have no idea why I'm answering these questions, see Blog Challenge post from earlier today...

OMG, no way can I narrow it down to 1! I will have no problem doing this in some of the other categories.

I am a big believer in "You are what you listen to." I seriously made this up...I think(???). Other people probably think it, too...but I've never heard anyone say it except me. HERE WE GO!

This will be extremely hard to do without large commentary on each song (we all know I talk too much) but...

If you put a gun to my head (scary!) and made me pick my three top favorite songs, it would, without a doubt, be:

Sweet Home Alabama - L.S.
Dixieland Delight - Alabama
Honky Tonk Women - The Rolling Stones

If you happened to mention the gun wasn't loaded, the list would get much longer and would quickly include:

Fortunate Son - Creedence Clearwater Revival - I am a huge CCR fan.
Lodi - CCR
When I'm 64 - The Beatles
Hold on Loosely - .38 Special
Tumblin' Dice - The Rolling Stones
Wagon Wheel - Old Crow Medicine Show
L.A. Woman - The Doors
Roadhouse Blues - The Doors
High Cotton - Alabama
Let's Go - The Cars
She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy - Kenny, hello.
The Good Stuff - Kenny
Lay You Down - Conway Twitty
Come a Little Closer - Dierks Bentley
Is Anybody Loving You These Days - Dierks Bentley
Yeah! -Usher - What??
Folsom Prison Blues - Johnny Cash
Get Rhythm - Johnny Cash
Jackson - Johnny & June
Johnny & June - Heidi Newfield
Shoulda Been a Cowboy - Toby Keith
Get In Where You Fit in - Too $hort
Soulshine - Gov't Mule
I'm On Fire - Bruce Springsteen
Tight Fittin' Jeans - Conway Twitty
Alabama - Cross Canadian Ragweed
17 - Cross Canadian Ragweed
Hey, Hey What Can I Do? - Led Zeppelin
Rocky Mountain Way - Joe Walsh
Billie Jean - Michael Jackson
Green River - CCR
I Believe in You - Don Williams
The Galway Girl - Steve Earle
Crazy Game of Poker - O.A.R.
All Right Now - Free
What About Georgia - Miranda Lambert
Don't It Make You Wanna Dance - Jason Boland
It's Alright - Bleu Edmondson
$50 and a Flask of Crown - Bleu Edmondson
Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet Emooooooooooooooooooooootion - Aerosmith
Ballroom Blitz - Misfits
Free Fallin' - Tom Petty but I like the John Mayer one better.
Cherry Bomb - John Cougar Mellancamp
What's My Name - Snoop Dogg, of course!
John Deere Green - Joe Diffie
Redneck Girl - Bellamy Brothers
Gett Off - Prince
7 - Prince
Purple Rain - Prince
Little Red Corvette - Prince
Raspberry Beret - Prince
Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound - Anyone who sings it is a friend of mine.
The Dope Show - Marilyn Manson
Guitars, Cadillacs - Dwight Yokam
Rock and Roll Girls - John Fogerty
Summer of '69 - Bryan Adams
Back to Da Hotel - N2Deep - what??
Up on Cripple Creek - The Band
Pretty Vegas - INXS
Pearl Necklace - ZZTop - what?? I had no idea what this song meant until a couple years ago at the fair when I was dancing around singing it. Thanks, Craig, for telling me :) I still love it, though!
Got Me Under Pressure - ZZTop
My Best Friend's Girl - The Cars
Sweet Child O Mine - GNR
Family Tradition (!!!) - Hank Williams, Jr.
State Line - Cooder Graw
Louisiana Saturday Night - Mel McDaniel
Down Home - Alabama
Jack & Diane - John Cougar Mellancamp
Back Where I Come From - Kenny C.
Ditty - Paperboy
Night Moves - Bob Segar
Blues Man - Alan Jackson
Mayberry - Rascal Flatts
Hey Jude - The Beatles
Melissa - Allman Brothers Band
Down on the Corner - CCR
Take It to the Limit - The Eagles
Never Been to Spain - Three Dog Night


If I had to name just a few, that is...

LOVVVVVE ~
Ann :)

BLOGGGG CHALLLENNNGGGGE! GO!

My muy awesome-o friend, Laura, has created a blog challenge. I am beyond stoked. We commit to blogging for 30 days.

Please start scoping her blog, too: http://www.themeckleys.com/ :)

Here is the challenge! I shall start TOMORROW! We all know I love blogging...but I do not do it. Why? I do not know. My old excuse was I had a job. Holla!

30-Day Blog Challenge

Day 1 – your favorite song
Day 2 – your favorite movie
Day 3 – your favorite television program
Day 4 – your favorite book
Day 5 – your favorite quote
Day 6 – 20 of my favorite things
Day 7 – a photo that makes you happy
Day 8 – a photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 9 – a photo you took
Day 10 – a photo taken over 10 years ago of you
Day 11 – a photo of you recently
Day 12 – something you are OCD about
Day 13 – a fictional book
Day 14 – a non-fictional book
Day 15 – your dream house
Day 16 – a song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 – an art piece (drawing, sculpture, painting, etc)
Day 18 – my wedding/future wedding/past wedding
Day 19 – a talent of yours
Day 20 – a hobby of yours
Day 21 – a recipe
Day 22 – a website
Day 23 – a youtube video
Day 24 – where I live
Day 25 – your day, in great detail
Day 26 – your week, in great detail
Day 27 – my worst habit
Day 28 – whats in my handbag/purse
Day 29 – hopes,dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 – a dream for the future

Busy

Shall I make an effort with grammar this eve? I shall not!

What did I do today? Busy, busy. LOL, not really.

Got up early, thanks to baby! Went to Target at 8 am! :) Dropped off Belle @ her grandparents house (she wanted to go there and they wanted to see her). Went to floral connection, bought some stuff. Went to JoAnn Fabrics. Bought some stuff. Came home. Sat outside for a looong time in the nice, warm breeze with B.Will and pushed him in his swing. I LOVE SUMMER!

Went to chiro, had B.Will adjusted. He's been turning into Lucifer over the past three days so I knew something was up. He's returned to his angelic self and been sleeping every since we got home. If you have a baby and DON'T go to the chiro, you are missing out. Kind of like when I "didn't use to like margaritas."

Went to take some newborn pics. Ahhhh, I want another! Then, some friends from high school brought little 2 year old Nolan out for pics. He was so cute!

Now, I'm holding my nite-nite baby bird. He's so sweet post-chiro! I'm sure he'll be up at midnight wanting to play and crawl everywhere. :)

Anyone have any scoop? I feel like I have no scoop since I've been home all week!

Mucho love!
Ann :)

BEHOLD!

As promised, here = my mom's favorite portrait of all time. I'm kind of disappointed, however, that O.M. didn't think to offer Dede the floating heads. They missed an additional sale!

This was the photo that wouldn't go away. Granted, it is cute-ish, for the 80's. But it was still hanging on my living room wall the day of my graduation party...FROM COLLEGE. No, not with my brother and I's senior pictures or collages of Christmas/birthday snapshots. Just this one. It was also in random lockets, wallets, jewelry boxes, etc, scattered throughout our house. I'm sure if the new owners of our casa on Linwood Ave pull up the carpet, they will find a few 5x7's of this timeless little #.

Isn't my little bro cute? I think they thought he was older than me. Hello, no, he's just taller. So I had to sit on the itchy carpeted cube. Rats!

C.O.S. - - - -

On a lighter note, I went to yoga today! OMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) :) :) :)

Loving the yogaing during the day! Eeeeeeeee! The only problem was I took someone else's body. WTF. My body is like a mixture of rubber bands and scrap metal. Some stuff stretches like before, some stuff uhhhh....DOESN'T. I'm sure it was looking like a hot mess. E.G. I can get into down triangle somewhat fine, but I can't get my right shoulder to open at all. Like, AT ALL. I don't even want to know what it looked like from the outside.

Mucho love!!!!!!!!! ~ann

P.S. I have not sewn today. LOL! Maybe tonight after the baby goes to bed! :)

OMFG

I'm sewing stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yay!!!!!!!!

I just "wound" and "threaded"(?) a bobbin! Until now, I had no idea what the ladies were talking aboutwhen they said bobbin.

I'll be back. Tutorial continues!!!!!!

Sweet

It comes w/ a dvd. This shall be helpful.

Drumroll...

I'm seriously opening the box right now. I know no one cares. :) But thought I'd post anyway!

Happy Tuesday!

I Got My Rock Moves

Disclaimer: Terrible grammar to follow...

God, I love not working. You get to teach yourself the randomest things you SHOULD know how to do, but don't.

So, I need to sew some stuff for photography props and backgrounds. I have been hanging out at Fabric Stores lately (lately = this past week) trying to figure out the best way to accomplish this. Considering the vast amount of sew-stuffs I need sewed (?), really the only *&^^ing feasible option is to learn to sew. Which, if you know me, is hilarious. Well, not really because I go all OBSESSIVE over whatever it is I'm obsessing over at the time. By next week, I may be making couture wedding dresses, you never know. I may reserve annstewardcouture.com while I'm thinking about it, just in case. Or I may throw the thing in the garbage. It's a big crapshoot, this one.

So, there is no way I could pay someone to do this vast amount of sewing for me. Remember, I just retired like yesterday. Bye-bye regular Corporate America deposits. Saddness. LOL. From my seat on the couch, I'm still living the good life.

So my options were my grandma and Kurt's mom. Kurt's mom is out. She likes to say, "Oh Ann, I wouldn't," a lot. Not that that's a bad thing, but she says it a lot when it's about stuff I need. You can see how this would be problematic. So, therefore, she would think making photography props is a waste of time. I love her dearly, but her idea of cool portrait photography is 1985 Olan Mills. Her and my mom agree on this. I need to go get my mom's fave photo after I post this and then post the photo of the photo. Does that even make sense? Then, my Grandma Donetta, who totally rocks it hardcore. She would probably do it for me. But, she has enough going on and helps me a TON with Belle. So that is just rude to ask her to help! It's all me, baby! Me & my new SINGER! Holla!

Well, I WASSSSSS super excited to get my Grandma Bernice (R.I.P.!!!!!!!)'s sewing machine. I am just SOOOOO SAD (waaaaah!) she's not around anymore (again, R.I.P.!!) to tell her I am staying home with the babies and I want to learn to sew. The entire time I was pregnant with Will, she continued to communicate her unimpressedness at me commuting over an hour each way and also me working, all while having a baby at home. So, needless to say, she'd be overjoyed because she loves me loves me loves me and would think it's awesome awesome awesome I'm teaching myself to sew.

I thought it would be crazy cool to get her sweet sewing machine...and it would. Too bad I finally found out the other day from my aunt that one of my other aunts wants it. BUT, my aunt is an excellent seamstress so really she should get it before me, so I'm happy for her. And then I started thinking about my laptop now vs. the Commodore 64 computer we had as kids. Yeah, the Barbie game rocked. But it's nothing compared to the internets. That being said, my Grandma's OTHER TWO available sewing machines are upwards of 30-40 years old. I'm assuming sewing machines have come a long way since then and are much more user- (aka idiot) friendly than they were then. So, me and the new Singer are going to make our peace tomorrow. I'll letcha know how it goes...if it goes. If you don't hear from me for awhile, it's probably safe to assume I stitched my hands together and landed myself in the E.R. Cheese grater incident, anyone!?

Wish me luck. For reals. Olan Mills photo to follow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,
Ann

Ahhhhhh....

Overjoyed really isn't the word to describe! I'm totally the baby-mama that threw away a traditional career to stay home with the bambino. I'll miss all of my many, many, awesome, wonderful, lovely work friends! xoxo! I HATED leaving my guy and seeing him get bigger by the week! And the one who suffered the most was Belle, age 9. It's always been her and I on the roll, then all of a sudden the baby demands all of our attention. I'm so excited to be around for both them now.

My car is looking forward to the break as well as it didn't really appreciate the hour+ commute. :)

Anyway, so miraculously, photography kind of fell out of the sky this year, it's going WONDERFULLY, and I adore, adore, adore it.

All of these things added up to me entering the SAHM world! Yay!

You may recall I'm married to an awesome guy, but a farmer. Farmers like to make money, not spend. I find this mentality to be counter-productive. Therefore, both he and his wallet have entered the witness protection program. Hehe. Too bad I know where he keeps his extra checks. :)

No, seriously, I can't thank him enough for allowing me to do this. He's the greatest!

I know my blog posts aren't normally this annoyingly "I LOVE MY LIFE!" BUT in this case, I think it's a special circumstance :) :) I feel like the hugest weight is lifted off my shoulders. IT'S SUNDAY and I'm not dreading tomorrow, or wishing the week away for the weekend. So, so happy.

Plus, I feel like I can have my LIFE BACK...the life I was supposed to live, not the one I've been living.lol. SUCH AS blogging, yoga, shopping (wait, that's not one of the things - damn it!), raising babies, volunteering at Belle's school ( I HAVE NEVER BENE ABLE TO DO THIS!), picking her up occasionally, being home during the winter when it's daylight, snuggling up with the kids on snow days, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc! :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

More cynical/typical blogs to be posted soon, I'm sure. Oh, I forgot to mention I may "occasionally" watch Days of Our Lives again. Hahaha. I'm sure Hope and Bo are still not back together, which will just p me off. ;)

Love you all!
Ann

YEAH, BABY!!

Random blog is back! Rock on! Thank you for checking back! I definitely wasn't trying to exclude anyone!! I just wasn't updating. So lame. Explanation below!

I can't believe the blog's only been locked down like 6 weeks. IT SEEMS LIKE FOREVER!

Alright, I probably shouldn't think this is funny but, not surprisingly, I do. What can I say, I have a "funny" sense of humor when it comes to work situations. As in, I don't get too worked up over it (pun intended). Yes, my lame jokes are back, too.

Soooo anyway, every 18 months, we can apply for new jobs at the company. I applied for one and had all of these managers thinking it would be AWESOME for me to just get an interview (I'm trying to cross functional areas) and they spoke with this particular hiring manager. I know this manager is active on facebook and I assume she may have looked me up...which, I thought would be okay since we weren't FB friends or anything. Shockingly, *gasp*, I did not get an interview. I am still offended. I bought a new outfit/jewelry in preparation and was practicing my most charming smiles and chattiness. I started thinking hmmmm...maybe I am a facebook case like on dateline or something...and she wasn't impressed with my St. Patrick's Day parade pics from 2006?? Whatever. 25 green beers never killed anyone. And considering those pics were taken at like 10 am on a Saturday...I was fully recovered by Monday at 8 am. ha. Nice chick! (Those are my friends Craig and Crystal, btw). The first pic was after about 19 beers. The second appears to be after I had the additional 6. I'm going to have to say, "Ew!" "Wow...?" & "Really?!" to that one.




So I looked up my profile by logging out. I had a HUGE picture of a newborn as my profile pic, and then my contact info was public. WHICH INCLUDED my email AND BLOGS!!!!!!!!!!! I mean, who doesn't want to hire a mom of a newborn?? We are always to work on time, never miss work for the kid being sick and never are irritable from the kid getting up 14 times per night. Wait...scratch all that.

Anyway, the last entry on my blogs (farmbaby) was titled, "Work Sucks!" And the first line read "Work is soooo over-rated but paychecks are so under-rated." LOL! I thought it was pretty funny at the time but I'm gonna go on a limb here and assume a hiring manager WOULDN'T.

So I had to lock down the blogs temporarily. But like I said, how can you not laugh at that situation? There are lots of other jobs in the company so I'm sure another will come along soon.

ANYWAY, so that is the scoop! I missed the blogs though! I'll unlock them as I update them. Summer at the farm has been good :) Hope everyone is enjoying this warm and GLORIOUS weather!!

Mucho love to ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
~Ann

Just Do It

My mom's a good one for not remembering the whole story from when I was growing up...as in, whatsoever. She does remember bits and pieces of random stuff though, which is pretty cool. She told Kurt I thought I was a princess growing up because I had a poster of it on my wall that said "I am the princess." I don't deny this blanket statement...and I won't say that still isn't the case either. lol. I was like, "What poster?" I started shuffling through my memoirs of the pink paradise....hmmm...I remember my Marky Mark poster, my Bon Jovi poster, my Ryne Sandberg poster, a pretty kickass flute poster (shut it)............ my Nike ad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She confirmed it was the Nike ad. Hells yeah. That thing hung on my wall FOREVER. I found it online today and it's still as awesome today as it was then!

It was like a 20-page ad from a magazine (prob YM or Seventeen) that had a couple of sentences on each page with a picture. I had it hanging on my wall by a tack for YEARS and YEARS. You know in high school/early college a year is like ten years. So yeah, I can't remember the pink paradise being without that Nike ad or my teenline. Some of you know the #.

Of course, I'll share the ad. I was pretty pumped to find it online. I still LOVE IT. ha...

"You were born a daughter. You looked up to your mother. You looked up to your father. You looked up at everyone. You wanted to be a princess. You thought you were a princess. You wanted to own a horse. You wanted to be a horse. You wanted your brother to be a horse. You wanted to wear pink. You never wanted to wear pink. You wanted to be a Veterinarian. You wanted to be President. You wanted to be the President's Veterinarian. You were picked last for the team. You were the best one on the team. You refused to be on the team. You wanted to be good in algebra. You hid during algebra. You wanted the boys to notice you. You were afraid the boys would notice you. You started to get acne. You started to get breasts. You started to get acne that was bigger than your breasts. You wouldn't wear a bra. You couldn't wait to wear a bra. You couldn't fit into a bra. You didn't like the way you looked. You didn't like the way your parents looked. You didn't want to grow up. You had your first best friend. You had your first date. You had your second best friend. You had your second first date. You spent hours on the telephone. You got kissed. You got to kiss back. You went to the prom. You didn't go to the prom. You went to the prom with the wrong person. You spent hours on the telephone. You fell in love. You fell in love. You fell in love. You lost your best friend. You lost your other best friend. You really fell in love. You became a steady girlfriend. You became a significant other. YOU BECAME SIGNIFICANT TO YOURSELF. Sooner or later, you start taking yourself seriously. You know when you need a break. You know when you need a rest. You know what to get worked up about and what to get rid of. And you know when it's time to take care of yourself, for yourself. To do something that makes you stronger, faster, more complete. Because you know it's never too late to have a life. And never too late to change one. JUST DO IT."

OMG, I Made a Roast

Who do I look like? Rachel Effing Ray?

I am not into handling raw meat. Schwan's made The Roast. I will call him T.R. for "The Roast". He weighs 3 lbs. Basically T.R. came frozen and I had to toss him in the slow cooker. I called my grandma to find out what else I was supposed to throw in with him, such as potatoes and carrots? She thinks it's funny when I cook. She said both and throw some onion on the top. My grandma is an AWESOME cook so she talks in terms like "some" and "a little". I had to pin her down on some details.

She told me to throw in the carrots and potatoes "about" an hour before it was done. Later, around the hour mark, I called to ask her if I had to peel the potatoes. Hahaha. She said yes but not if they are red. I got additional details such as how many pieces to cut them in, etc.

Somehow it later came out that T.R. was in the slow cooker and not the oven. LOL. She laughed and we realized his friends, Potatoes and Carrots, should have been chillin' it out with him the entire time. OMFG. She said, "It never occured to me it was in the slow cooker." I said, "It never occurred to me to put it in the oven." lol.

So I had to take the potatoes and carrots out of the roast and put them in the microwave with "a little bit" of water for "awhile". It was pretty damn funny coversation if you ask me.

Somehow it took me these utensils to make T.R.:

I have no idea how.

I am very undomesticated, especially when it comes to cookin' up carne. Gross.

The whole point is it looks like a roast and smells like a roast. Well, I guess it IS a roast that didn't come to my house bleeding?? My chef of a husband will prob fall over when he comes into the house. Hopefully T.R. doesn't start mooing the scoop and blow my cover.

And god no I'm not eating T.R. We have bonded today since the Schwan's dude gave him to me this morning. I'm having a veggie burger and a Diet Coke, hello :)

When I do cook, for real, not Schwan's, it's pretty awesome. However, I only do this on rare occasion because I use too many utensils :) :)

I'm gonna drink a Spotted Cow with dinner though. =Love.

Moocho love,

Ann

RUFKM? Warning: Lots of Rambling!

OMG, I'm not so good at multi-tasking. What can I say, I guess I'm a bad accountant. I also haven't entered anything into my check register since 2001. Oops. I say, hey that's what ONLINE banking is for. Do I really want to know how much I spend on responsible things like oil changes, government bonds and calcium supplements (aka $0)? No. Do I really want to know how much I spend on Diet Cokes, makeup and jeans? Wow, what do you know - also a no. Kurt will spend two hours looking for $0.47 in his checkbook while I drink diet coke, review my account online and quickly move on to http://www.wwtdd.com/. Now, who's having more fun? (Note: never ask the question "Now, who has a higher balance?")

Anyway, on the multi-tasking, either it's makeupness, babyness OR randomness. I have no idea why because none of the above take me long to post! Therefore, many apologies on the delays! I was going to seriously post about the Katy Perry thing this weekend anyway. See way below.

Check it - mama's going back to work on Thursday! More on this later...

As for the title, I didn't make up that acronym, although we all know how much I love acronyms such as WTF, WTH, B, FU, OMG, OMFG, OMFFFFG, OMFGGGGG etc etc etc. I'm class-ay! lol. OMG, just used another one (lol)!

So, a couple years ago, my friend Heather and I got into an internet fight with this huge B on the qcweddings message board. She gave us the RUFKM. For the record, she was MAD because in my muy bueno wedding review, I told everyone we had a band and IT ROCKED IT but that the band doesn't do weddings, but they did for us because my uncle and his brother are in the band, blahblahblah. So my review said, "OMG definitely get A band!!" and went on to say how much fun it was to have a band and how everyone danced, loved it, etc etc etc. She was mad because I wouldn't give the name of the band. So I wrote back and said, hello sister, I am saying GET A BAND, not MY band because they don't do weddings and really aren't even together anymore. lol. Well, I had also said that our dj was a family friend but that I had been to several weddings where DJ Rebel played and he was great. So she also had an issue with me recommending someone I never hired. lol. So my friend Heather jumped in and gave her a scathing lesson on word-of-mouth advertising and who cares that I wasn't the one paying the dj but I was a guest where everyone had a great time, etc etc etc. The very small and remote point of this story is she gave us the R.U.F.K.M. a couple of times and I still use it because it's hilarious. It's kind of like FML, which I also think is hilarious. My sense of humor has a lot to be desired, I guess.

So - that being said - RUFKM????????????????? 4 RUFKM Things of Late:

1) Went to hot yoga on Friday. Hot, hot, hot! It's def NOT as caliente as the shala on Sundays but it seems weird to start out super hot instead of progressively getting suicidally hot. I liked it but it was kind of slow/peaceful for me. I found out my knee is STILL no bueno so I still can't run. RUFKM #1. Grrr!

2) I told the farmhusband on Friday, "I AM GOING TO YOGA ON SUNDAY." They worked outside all day on Saturday and I stayed inside with the chickadees. But then Belle woke up sick on Saturday a.m. and progressively got worse throughout the day. I looked in her throat last night and KNEW it was strep. RUFKM #2.

3) Called dr. last night who said to bring her to the office Sunday a.m. for a strep test. It was becoming clear no Ashtanga a la Shala for me. RUFKM #3.

4) Belle woke up throwing up, too. So she couldn't keep the motrin down, OMFG. Went to peds office. Positive strep test. Now my throat is hurting. RUFKM #4!!! Seriously, I cannot be sick, cannot get the baby sick! Mama's gotta GO TO WORK!!!!!!!!! ON THURSDAY! Like, I cannot call in, people. lol. I haven't been there since December 20th so I've been "resting" for over 3 months. I would go in if I had strep but obviously I can't leave my lil guy if he gets it!

All these RUFKM's made me realize today, on the 40 minute drive to the peds office: the universe doesn't want me to get skinny, work OR find my namaste. I'm f###ed.

Speaking of weight loss, I've lost 4 lbs since the knee injury and going vegan! 2 lbs to first dr. appt weight and 7 to wedding (aka pre-pregnancy) weight. Holla. Not that 7 isn't a TON left to go, because it is, I'm just sayin'.

***********************Random C.O.S.**********************************************

So the other night Belle was in bed reading and I took the little guy in there. Sometimes we sing dorky songs to him. Like we will put babyish words into real songs. One of his nicknames is "cashew" so I went in there and was bouncing him and I sang, "I kissed cashew and I liked it!"

Note: Belle and I listen to 99.99999999% country and classic rock.

She singingly goes: "I kissed off him's cherry chapstick. I kissed cashew just try it. I kissed off him's cherry chapstick."

I'm dying! She got the words a little wrong and was repeating the chapstick thing but the point is she knows the tune and a vast majority of the words to I kissed a girl. OMG. Not cool.

One day I told Kurt that Belle loves the song Night Moves. He responded with "Great, a song about teenage s##." That's when I realized how many songs she knows that are about that! Think about it - like 95% of songs are about s., lots about it as teenagers! For e.g. one of my fave Kenny songs goes a lil something like this, hit it:

First it discusses turning 16 and getting a car. Then it says this:
Took Katie down by the river with a six-dollar bottle of wine. Just a fool tryin' to play it cool, hopin' she'd let me cross the line. I was prayin' that she couldn't tell I'd never been that far before. The first time's a one-time feelin' and I never wanted nothin' more. No, I'd never wanted nothin' more.

Not disagreeing with my man, here. I just don't think my 8 year old singing it is cool. Shall I banish her to Peter Paul & Mary? omg. My parents totally had no idea the tapes they bought me and I memorized included Bel Biv Divoe's "Do Me Baby" and E-Z E's "Nobody Move, Nobody Gets Hurt." lol. I never thought about what I was singing though!!!!!! When do you start to realize what you're singing???

******************************************************************************
I wonder how many people read this blog and totally hate me and rip on this blog with their friends. lol. I read a couple of blogs written by major jacka$$e$. Note: if I know you, I love your blog. The jacka$$ blogs I read are people I don't know. If you are curious want the sites, email or facebook me. Heather and I like to read them and talk about what complete idiots these people are. That being said, surely I have some haters! :) I hope I do! lol. That means success in the blog world.

****************************************************************************

So that's all the hot scoop around here! Illness, wwtdd, and inappropriate songs. :)

Mucho love to everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ann :)

PS - sorry for the bad english - run-ons, fragments, ending a sentence with the wrong types of words, etc etc etc. I'm typing fast :)

No Buen!

Yo y'all!

Eff. So I hurt my knee, omg. Technically, I hurt it in yoga approx. 1.5 years ago (aka - few months before the bun hopped into the oven). I was doing this very challenging pose known as "triangle" lol. Seriously, of all poses, I didn't anticipate hurting myself during freaking triangle. Anyway! My chiro was working on it until the stork visited. Post-stork, I decided to take some time off yoga to accomodate my hectic eating and sleeping schedule.

When I made my Grande Return of the BAM, I realized omg, my knee is better! Yay! However, last week, every run I started noticing my knee more. It was the same pain as the triangle fiasco. Eff! So I went to my chiro of awesomeness who informed me I rotated my knee. Double eff! So I haven't been able to work out until this coming Wednesday. I'll let you know how it goes. Knee is still no bueno but I'm hoping by Wednesday that it will be!

On a lighter note, I am bored with grilled chicken and going back to veganism for awhile. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm sure it won't last long but I'll keep everyone posted! :)

Who has other scoop? Do send.

Love,
Moi

Tricky, Tricky

See poll above!!!!!!!!!!! I like blog polls A LOT, I just never have anything to ask!

I deleted all of the worthless songs from my old running playlist (see blog post below). Did I already say, "Thank God?" Some of those songs were just embarrassing (Magic Stik is not one of them, hello).

I'm now the proud new owner of what I call the Tricked Out Running List. 87 songs of pure cardioness! Yeehaw.

Does anyone give a damn about this list? If so, I'll type it on out. If not, I'll be on the treadmill thinking of something cooler/randomer to post about (more likely randomer). Holla! So plz vote :)

Love you all~
A. :)

P.S. Tricky isn't on there...yet. lol.

Wow (not in a good way)

I've always been completely, psychotically obsessesd with (and emotionally dependant on) music. I'm a HUGE fan of music, in large part thanks to my awesome dad who had a humongous record collection in the 80's. And a ton of 8-tracks. Then tapes, then cds, etc.

Fortunately for all involved, since the invention of the iPod, my friends/family are no longer required to share shotgun with my 50 lb. cd case which included everything from Sir Mix A Lot to Alan Jackson to ACDC to Biggie to 38 Special. I'm a big fan of COUNTRY for sure (new and old), classic rock, old school rap, Britney, etc etc etc.

Now, don't go thinking I'm all unique and stuff. I remember watching a Howard Stern show once (loved it) where they were talking about music. Howard only listens to "hits" where the others on the show would buy a cd and listen to the entire thing. Howard said that was stupid and "TELL ME WHAT I'M GOING TO LIKE AND I'LL LIKE IT." I rock it like Howard. There are some exceptions to this rule that no one cares about so I won't go into it. But in general, when I say I'm a huge fan of "X, Y or Z" that means I've listened to their popular songs 500 million times but I'm not a "real fan" (aka crazy) as in know where they were born and what the title to track 2 on their third album is (unless it's greatest hits. lol.)

We have like 35 gigs of music in iTunes. You would never know this by my pathetic playlist for working out. I have lived with this playlist for sooooo long because hellllllo, I hate exercising! I don't do it too often...until now! And I need a playlist for working out because being such a country fan, the general "shuffle" during a run would be at least 70% country (no bueno for getting the sexyback). During one of my "garage runner" treadmill phases, I skimmed the library and created a workout playlist by throwing in any fast-paced songs I could think of and/or songs I happened to see and loved.

Emilene suggested to not HATE running but to think of it as a time I get to listen to music uninterrupted. I agree! There are two things I've always wanted to be: a singer and a runner. I'm a horrible singer and in fact, ditched my music major in college because I didn't want to take "Sight Singing." The running thing isn't happening either because a) not good at it and b) hate it!

That being said, over the last couple days, I decided Emilene is right but my playlist needs a HUGE overhaul since I skip through most of the songs while working out or running anyway! But I thought it would pretty cool/funny (Bueller??) to post my playlist and make fun of it. Please send any suggestions for new songs my way (I probably already have it in iTunes or I'll buy it). Anything with a * in front of it means I actually listen to it (aka don't hit "next") when working out and will keep it around:

*All Right Now - Free. I think it's about a prost. but I don't care!

*Ballroom Blitz - Misfits. =Love since Dave Navarro and Carmen Electra's wedding show. He got up and sang it with the band. It rocks it.

*Beautiful People - Marilyn Manson. Love me some MM. This is probably surprising to most people but hello he loves makeup too. I don't listen to very much "new rock" so MM is an exception to the rule. Not that he's "new" like Gym Class Heroes or any of those stupid bands but I mean "newer" than CCR (see below).

*Born on the Bayou - CCR. One of my favorite bands of all time. Can't live without them. Ever.

*Butterfly - Crazy Town. "Sealed with a kiss...and a thank you, miss." Don't hate.

*Closer - Nine Inch Nails. lol.

Cream - Prince. Adore Prince but working out to him sux in most cases. Apparently, there are a lot of cases of this on my playlist...

*C^m On Feel The Noize - Quiet Riot. C^m on. You know you love it, too! One of my fave songs of all time. Seriously.

Dancing With Myself - Billy Idol. Ha! I have no idea. The only Billy Idol song I like is White Wedding and that's not on here! Dying!

Dirty - Xtina. I'm over it.

Don't Cha - P.Cat Dolls. It's cute. But I'm over it.

*The Dope Show - Marilyn Manson. Love.

Dude (Looks Like A Lady) - Aerosmith. Hmmm...yeah this needs to go.

Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic - The Police. Same as above.

*Gett Off - Prince. I work out to this one. This was also a jazz dance Kate and I did in eighth grade. Listen to the words...can't believe our teachers picked that song. I blame our promiscuousness on them because of this song. Oh and also, this was a highly-requested song by my friends and I during our Stickman's days. You know who you are!

Give Me Three Steps - L.Skynyrd. Love this song but omg who works out to this? No one, that's who.

*Glycerine - Bush. I never work out to it but ran to it the other night. It wasn't too bad. I'll leave it on.

Goodbye To You - Scandal. It's pretty cute. I could probs work out to it. But I don't. I think this is a good thing.

*Got Me Under Pressure - ZZ Top. Can I give this one 2 stars? I love this song and ZZ.

I Love Rock & Roll - Joan Jett. Again, love it, over it, the end!

*It's Like That - Run D.M.C. Work out to it. You'll like it. Run DMC Jam Master J Run!

Jack and Diane - J.Mellancamp. Love J.Mellancamp beyond words. This song reminds me of my mom and dad (Rick & Diane). I remember my parents listening to it when I was a kid and they were still married :) I think I'll keep it on.

*Jane Fonda - Mickey Avalon. Ohhhhh yeah. It's stayin'!!!!!

Let's Get Rocked - Def Leppard. Hmmm...it's gotta gooooo!!

*Let's Go - The Cars. I LIKE THE NIGHTLIFE BABY!!!!!!!!!!! She saiiiiiidddd...

Little Red Corvette - Prince. =Gone

*Magic Stik - Lil' Kim. WTF. lol. You know if I'll admit this one is on there and that I still listen to it, I'll admit anything.

Mr. Jones - Counting Crows. Love it but it gotsta go.

*My Best Friends Girl - The Cars. I seriously don't listen to The Cars that often. But maybe I should. lol. *clapclap*

Nothin' But a Good Time - Poison. Love it (esp. when drunk). Never work out to it. Bye Bye, Brett *heartbreak*

Paradise City - GNR. Good cut. But bye bye.

*Pearl Necklace - ZZ Top. Hahaha! I love this song! They came to the fair a few years ago. This song was already on this already-created playlist. Unfortunately, I didn't know what it meant! My friend Craig had to tell me during the concert!! If you know Craig and I, I bet you're laughing your @$$ off right now. Funniest conversation ever.

*Personal Jesus - Marilyn Manson. I'm beginning to think I have a MM problem. I only listen to him when working out, I swear. *surrrre*

*Pretty Vegas - INXS. From Rockstar INXS, hello!

Purple Rain - Prince. OMFG. How do I love thee but COME ONNNNNN.

P. Control - Prince. See above!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I told you I was a Prince fan but this is getting OUT of control lame.

The Race Is On - Sawyer Brown. I tried to incorporate country. It didn't work. Never listen to it when working out.

Raspberry Beret - Prince. OMG!!!!!!!!

*Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes. *drums*

Sexy M.F. - Prince. I seriously cannot take any more.

*SexyBack - J.T. Loved it (him) then. Love it (him) now. Go head be gone with it.

*She F'in Hates Me - Puddle of Mudd. Reminds me of a "very special someone." It's staying. ha!

Smooth Criminal - Alien Ant Farm. On the fence about this one. I usually skip it.

Someday I'll Be Saturday Night - Bon Jovi. Seriously??? Of all the Bon Jovi songs, I picked this one? I may replace it with a little BAD MED-I-CINE.

Suga Suga - Baby Beesch. Needs. to. go.

*Suicide Blonde - INXS. It's stayin'!

Sumpin' New - Coolio. OMFG! I'm dying! 1, 2, 3, 4... It does give me fond memories of Mexico however that's where the coolness ends.

*Sweet Child O' Mine - GNR. =True Love.

*Sweet Dreams - Marilyn Manson. OK, this is getting weird.

Talk Dirty To Me - Poison. *deletes from playlist*

Wanna Be a Baller - Lil Troy. I'm dying.

What's the Frequency, Kenneth - REM. Good song, bad workout song.

*Will You Be My Girl - Jet. It can stay.

*Yeah - Usher. Haha. Still one of my fave songs ever. Yes, I'm 19.

1999 - Prince. I am not going to say ANYTHING!

7 - Prince. *silence*

*Bad Romance - Lady Gaga. Recently added. Totally love.

Who wants to hire me to make playlists for them? I'm so good at it! Not!!

I'll be working on a revamp...

Love,
Ann:)

Shanti

Holla. Made it to yoga. It wasn't NEARLY as wretched and harsh as the first time I went to yoga post-bebe. OH IT WASN'T GOOD BY ANY MEANS, just not AS BAD as last time. I'll try not to L&B too much this week although I make no promises. :)

Here is what has sucked about my yoga experience in the last couple years:

Pre-Baby: Not being able to do stuff I KNOW I should be able to do because I could have easily done it when I was younger. This encompasses a lot of poses. lol. But then I remind myself that I haven't cheered in 10 years so hello, that's a long time.

Post-Baby: Not being able to do stuff I KNOW FOR SURE I can do because hello, I could do it like 9 months ago. lol. e.g. ultpluthi:

I used to be able to hold this for 10 and wow, guess what! Now I can hold it for 0. Mainly because I can't get to it at all. And I'm pretty sure I could never get THAT far off the floor. lol.

I was SHOCKINGLY able to bind in a couple of poses this week that could not the last time. One was Marichiasana (spell!!) C. I just said, oh well, I'll try to grab. I got it! Granted it was like by the fingernails at first (lol) but I was able to catch my fingertips and even skipped the vinyasas to continue holding it on both sides.

This girl is ripped, btw.

Anyway, that is my yoga scoop! :) Tomorrow it's back to the lame old gym. *yawn*

Mucho love,
~Ann :)

Addicted

O.M.G.!!!!!! I am soooooooooooooooooooooo addicted to working out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!

Getting SexyBack SUCKSSSS! Still hatin' it! I will NEVER, EVER be a workout addict! A wise man (he knows who he is - ha) once said: "If it were easy, every girl would be HOT and I wouldn't have any problems." lol. It is soooo true and I try to remember this every day at the gym. It helps A LOT. What also helps A LOT is that I have a workout program I follow.

I'm already freaking out about how I'm going to work out once I go back to work though. Right now I can go every day. If I don't wait until Kurt gets home from work, my mother-in-law watches my bambino during the day so I can go.

Being away from the sweet babe is going to KILL ME so the last thing I'll want to do is stop at the gym and add an additional hour to my already one-hour commute EACH WAY. Ugh!

I have been doing my cardio on my treadmill. You wouldn't know it by watching me do cardio (horrible) but I actually have a pretty sweet treadmill. It's the nicest possible treadmill that should be allowed to rot from non-use in my possession. I have rarely used it BECAUSE a) I hate running and b) when I bought it, I had a house with an awesome basement for a treadmill. Then, I moved. At our last house, the treadmill lived in the unattached garage for five years. A couple of Springs, I would get into a "running phase" but hello running in a garage after it gets up to 85 or so, is NOT PLEASANT. Now, our house we moved to around T-giv has a great treadmill basement! So hopefully I'll be able to get good use out of it. And instead of going to the gym every day, I'll have to go to 3 times per week and do the rest at home, I guess. Did I mention how much I hate exercise? :)

On a lighter note, tonight we watched Four Christmases. I thought it was super cute. It was no Legally Blonde but it will do.

Hope everyone has great weekends! Tomorrow I'm going to try to go to yoga. Yay!

Mucho love,
Ann

Bad Idea

Sometimes my gift ideas for the husband are GREAT. Like when I buy him expensive carmel apples or boxes of Lago's toffee. In other words, I buy those great gifts "for ussssssss." :) He's extremely hard to buy for and forced me into this behavior, for the record. And I can only buy the dude SO MANY car wash giftcert packages per year (although he loves them, trust me). He really doesn't like gambling so a few lottery tickets in his Christmas stocking are good so he doesn't have to pretend to like them more than once per year.

He buys me awesome prizes but hello, I'm easy to buy for!

So, a couple weekends ago, we were out and about. The husb dropped me off at the gym and ran to Best Buy with Le Bebe. He picks me up and in the bag, he has two movies: something I already forgot and Inglorious Basterds (spell)? He does this occasionally...buys movies that we never will watch again. Unlike myself :), he is super good with money so I feel bad having him waste funds he could be using to buy me spa gift certificates and flowers. J/K. Anyway, I'm like "Why did you buy these?" Him: "Because I have been wanting to see them and we never get to watch movies." So then I felt bad because while I HATE watching movies, he LOVES watching them. It's kind of hard to watch movies when he's taking care of everything around here and Belle watches Disney Channel 24/7. Seriously, there are soooo many movies I haven't seen. This means new and old. Some that people can't believe but no, I haven't seen are: Goonies, Revenge of the Nerds, Weekend at Bernie's, Ghostbusters, etc. Unless you are Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Clueless, The Breakfast Club, Dirty Dancing, Legally Blonde (I & II), Sweet Home Alabama, Bad Boys, Boiler Room or Dead Man on Campus, I have not seen you!

So, I had a "great idea" to buy him a year of NetFlix for Valentine's Day. He seems to love it and it's working out great! I can't believe we've lived without it for so long. He is so sweet too because he has a bunch of movies I would like on the list (e.g. Four Christmases). Oh and he discovered the Reba dvd's on there, too. haha! I was really LOVING this gift that I (once again) apparently got for US! ha!

Here's where the good idea ends...

SO I was hanging out watching Inglorious Basterds tonight...
WTF. Dumbest movie ever. I just don't have the patience for movies. I also don't really like death or blood so any guy movie is pretty much lame to me. Duh, I should have realized that Kurt's tv in his "man lair" used to be decent until we acquired the flat-screen in the living room! So instead of lairing it up with Brad Pitt and his fake Southern accent, I'm sitting on the couch, missing Golden Girls and watching people get scalped. ????

Then, he is checking out his NetFlix that arrived. He's like, "I got us Four Christmases." That was good and sooo sweet of him. :) Then he said, "You probably don't want to watch 310 to Yuma?" I'm like, "WTF is that?" He says, "It's a modern-day Western." Haha. I love this guy. He is hilarious. But no way in hell am I watching that!!!!!!!!!!!!! But oh guess what, I'm sure it will be on the living room tv within the next couple of days and I'll be watching a damsel in distress ride away on a horse. The thing I don't get about Westerns is isn't it always the same plot? Aka - there isn't one?

The moral of the story is that while I will get some good out of this gift I bought for "him," including Reba and cool movies, I'll also be blogging and watching people get shot, scalped and quartered after Belle is in bed every night. lol.

I need to exchange the NetFlix for an industrial-size box of English Toffee :) I would have done this originally, but toffee isn't on my workout regimen.

Mucho love,
The Inglorious Gift-giver :)

PS -I remembered the other movie he bought at Best Buy! It was The Hangover. Hilarious. I was dying!!!!

Holla!

So on Saturday night, we went out! Crazy, I know. RANDOMLY, this cat, Matt Mason, who I've seen play in my favorite town in the world, Nashville, came to play in a bar near our house IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. Literally. I am so surprised he didn't want to play in town. I'm sure he was traumatized at the nowhereness of where he was playing. Haha. This bar was in the middle of nowhere compared to my house, which is literally in the middle of nowhere. lol. I think you get the point... Needless to say, I'm sure he was excited to get back to Nashville.

Anyway! So we and some friends went to have dinner there and watch Matt Mason. It was a great time!!! The husband I danced to our wedding song, Dixieland Delight and omfg they played ROCKY TOP. It was a close to Nashville as I've been since last March. SIGH!!!!!!!!!!!!! CAN I GET A HOLLER AND A SWALLER?? 1...2...3...

I need to start planning my next Nashville trip STAT. I'm dyingggggg from withdrawl. Normally we always go in March for my birthday but I would love to go when it's warmer. Last year was a lil cold for this sista.

Had the greatest Valentine's Day hanging out with Kurt and sweet babe. :) Belle was at her grandparents house then at a birthday party so I day was very quiet and drama-free! Haha!

Hope Y'ALL had a great V-Day. I'll keep Y'ALL posted on Nashville!

Love,
Ann :)

Oh P.S. - the reason he was in the middle of nowhere was a guy who owns a Ford Dealership invited him to come play. I love this man. He is a genius. I hope he continues to do this!!!

Love Letters

Today, this post shall be in the form of love letters. For no apparent reason other than I have little to nothing to blog about so a new "format" would be nice.

Dear Saturn on the Interstate,
Hello, dumb@$$. Do you really think you should tailgate then try to be faster than the Audilicious? Be ____ing serious.
Love,
Ann

Speaking of a$$e$, I cannot believe the time has come where my a$$ is the LEAST of my workout worries....
Dear Cellulite (a.k.a. extra 15 lbs),
I effing HATE YOU! You will be gone, I assure you. How about we make this easy on both of us and you just GO AWAY!!!!!
Love,
Ann

Dear Sweet Baby,
You were worth it. :)
Love,
Ann

Dear Mother-In-Law,
Thank you for watching my kids while I go to the gym :) I have TWO KIDS!?!? omg.
Love,
Ann

Dear People at the Gym,
The gym is much better during the day. Way less people.
Love,
Ann

Dear People at the Gym who make my protein shakes,
I love you.
Love,
Ann

Dear Scale at the Gym,
I don't love you. Whatsoever.
Love,
Ann

Dear New HP laptop,
I love you. You are awesome. I will never glance toward Kurt's beloved desktop computer again! I hate that damn thing (he loves it).
Love,
Ann

Dear Husband,
Thank you for the Valentine's flowers a couple days early! :) I'm sure it will be wayyyy past Valentine's Day when he finally reads this blog. lol.
Love,
Ann

Dear New Facebook,
Not a fan of you.
Love,
Ann

Dear Best Buy,
Thank you for selling the six seasons of Reba on dvd. I will be purchasing them SOON! lol.
Love,
Ann

Dear New Super Mario Bros. Wii Game,
You used to be cool. Now you annoy the hell out of me because Belle plays you constantly.
Love,
Ann

Dear Readers,
I realize this list is boring. But this really is what is going on in my life. I love being a stay at home mom! I could get used to this... hehe
Love,
Ann :)

It's WEDNESDAY!

You know what that means? High School Reunion is on tonight, people! On TV Land. Yes, I said TV Land. Yes, I am once again posting about t.v. LOL! 9:00 central, people. Watch it!

Seriously, I love this show. I can hear all of my high school friends, especially Mandy, Kate, Kate, Crystal, Crystal and Hairy saying (without being too impressed), "You would." It is soooo me. lol. But for real this show is awesome.

I am normally just bad at watching t.v., particularly these once a week type of shows. The ONLY show that I have ever watched religiously was Rock Star INXS. Lovvvvvvvved it. I still rock out to Pretty Vegas by JD Fortune once in awhile. In general, I just forget about my shows but considering I have nothing else going on right now with the little guy sleeping 18 hours per day, I am thanking God for t.v. and the fact I have about 18 more months until Barney the purple dino starts to rule my life AGAIN!

It's effing freezing out! FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZING. I cannot decide what is better - maternity leave in the summer or winter. Belle has a late May bday. So I spent that better part of that summer looking and feeling ew. At least this time I can wear pants and l/s shirts covered with sweaters instead of tank tops. But at least in the summer we could sit on the deck and soak up some sun and humidity. And go for walks. And get into the car without freezing our a$$es off. Ugh! Hmmm...so I'm still undecided.

K, so I need to roll out. I have to go to the mall to get some outfits for our big family picture on Friday. Fun, fun.

Mucho love!
Ann

Workin' It

So, I'm not talking about working out in a way that's all, "I'm skinny and cute and workin' it out! And I want to chat about it!" Ohhh h no...I'm talking about working out in a way that IS like, "OMFGGGGG, all of that Whitey's ice cream when I was pregnant = NOT WORTH IT." Not worth it! Soooo-o-o-o-o not worth it. *cries* No pics to be posted of the evidence. Ew.

Yah, yoga isn't going to cut it this time. I had to go back to weight training...which I dig but I dig yoga wayy more. For reals. I did miss the Peach Pear protein shakes from my gym, though.

Ew. I also started eating chicken again TEMPORARILY. EEEW. HATE IT! HATE IT! This will be short-lived.

So, this is a huge post of me b!Tching about something that is entirely my fault. :)

Some good things goin' on besides my lil bambino are: DIET POP, planning our Vegas trip, watching Belle play Super Mario on wii 24/7, the Reba show (see prior posts)*lol*, getting used to our awesome SLR camera that I never took the time to learn to use before now, my new HP arriving today *woot*, and loving my new rockin' makeup stash (see makeup blog - hopefully new post tonight).

So, all in all, life is good :)

Does anyone else have any good scoop? We're pretty boring around here. It looks like we might be snowed in tomorrow. Yay!

Mucho love~
Ann :)

Yes, still...

limping, b!tching. Not kidding. Damn, my hamstrings are killing me. I'm now doing this cute little cross-country skiing number instead of walking. It's easier to drag my feet than pick them up. Maybe by the time E&K get back from India in 2 months, I'll be over it?

So, I moved just before Thanksgiving. I have ignored all boxes that are what I call "out of sight, out of mind" boxes. They are out of my sight and out of my mind, but there are in Kurt's sight. Ya know, Mr. Sleeping with the Enemy. Mainly because I used our basement as a dumping ground and graveyard for the boxes I am not sure what to do with the contents. Oops. I never go in the basement but he always does since his bathroom and clothes are down there. So, I'm going to TRY to unpack a box per day of these boxes I don't know what to do with. Today, I hit up a HUGE box that had been stuffed in the kitchen closet.

After Kurt got off work, we picked up my rizide from the dealership. Oh, how I love my car but seeing the shiny NEW Audi's in the parking lot absolutely kills me. I need to continue to rock out my current A4. It's awesome but the color is starting to annoy me, similar to every other car I've owned. I get annoyed with the color after a couple years. Maybe bored is the answer instead of annoyed?? Je ne sais pas!

Emilene gave me an idea to start cooking! I think this is a great idea. I haven't cooked since last July. lol. Seriously, the husb is a chef. But it wouldn't kill me to make something now that I'm home with Mr. No Sleep during the day! Hopefully this time, no injuries will occur. I'll avoid that damn cheese grater! Promise!!

Love,
Ann :)

Owwwwwwww... And Daytime T.V.

Oh yeah, still L'ing and B'ing! It's awesome!

So, the little peanut and I have been hanging out watching daytime t.v. Normally, I'm not a big t.v. watcher but there's not a lot to do when you're home all day and it's 0 degrees outside! My mother-in-law comes to visit us a lot. Thank God she gets back from Mexico tomorrow!

All of that being said, I want you all to know that Reba is a pretty g.d. awesome show. He'll probably kill me for posting this, but I've noticed my husband watching it before and made fun of him. I will publicly apologize because truly the show is soooo hilarious! Seriously, watch it next time you are home sick. Lifetime Network, Baby! It's onl ike 3 hours straight in the mornings.

Occasionally, I can catch the greatest show in the world, Golden Girls! And one day there was a Brady Bunch marathon on t.v. To my horror, Belle was home from school that day and had never seen or heard of the Brady Bunch. We'll be buying the boxed sets very soon. Very, very soon. I already have all of the seasons of the Golden Girls, in case anyone cares.

I posted to my Facebook that Days of Our Lives has made about zero progress since the last time I was on maternity leave almost 9 years ago. I can't take the stress, people. I cannot effing believe Hope & Bo are once again BROKEN UP!

The reason I'm watching so much t.v. is because the sweet little baby sleeps most of the time so I'll admit to holding him 99.9% of the time. :)

Mucho love,
Ann :)

Waaaaaaaaah! Days, Nashville, ec.

OMFG I am so sore! L&B, people, L&B! There's been a whole lot of whining going on at my house today. Luckily, the baby has no choice but to listen intently :) It makes me feel better...not really. lol.

On a lighter note, I watched Days of Our Lives today. Seriously, there has been NO PROGRESS since the last time I was on maternity leave in 2001! Well, except the fact they are taking advantage of the 'internets' now and Skyping with eachother insted of just calling eachother, even though they all live in Salem. Stupid. Hope and Bo are still having MAJOR DRAMA - currently broken up but still talking about eachother. I think their little girl wants them to get back together (she's like 5). Bo was skyping with his little daughter today and forgot to turn off his computer. So the little girl logged back on and caught him making out with some random chick. Duh. The goods news is Charlie, the neighbor from the show Empty Nest, is now on the show. I'm not sure why that is good news except for I still laugh thinking about Dreyfuss, the dog.

I'm in the beginning stages of planning my annual hommage to Nashville. Shall we go in March? April? May? June? Hmmm... I'd love to go when it's warm even though we ALWAYS go around my b-day in March.

We can't go in July because we're going to Vegas. Yay!

Okay, that's all my scoop!

Love,
Ann

Limp/B!tch, Same Story/Diff Year

Happy 2010!!

Went to yoga today. OMG, either I took off 10 months from yoga or I gained a bunch of weight. Oh yeah, I freaking did BOTH! So it's been a little over 3 weeks since Baby Will's b-day! I decided it was time to hit the shala!!! My practice was pretty terrible but not as bad as I expected. I am definitely already sore though and it's not even tomorrow yet! Yikes!! I'm all set to limp & b!tch tomorrow :) I was sooooo happy to get back to yoga though! =Love!!

I then weighed myself. I am aware it's only been 3 weeks but patience is not a virtue I've acquired during my 31.8 years. I have 11 lbs to lose to get back to my "first dr. appt. weight (I was about 10 weeks I think)" and 14 or 15 to lose to get down to my "wedding weight." So I guess I'm off the ice cream diet. Hahaha.

Mucho love to y'all!
~Ann