Merry Winter

First, our lucky ducky Tiny Prints winner…

Yay for Lauren, who is getting a little niece or nephew this Christmas!

Anyone else get some snow action today? Woke up to this outside our bedroom window…

I absolutely dig this little patch of woods and creek behind our house.  Dig it lots.  Over the summer, we could leave the windows open overnight and go to sleep to the lovely soundtrack of all the woodsy stuff out there.  Heavenly.  Of course with winter bearing down on us, the woodland creatures and insects are hibernating and with no leaves, we get the sound of the very busy thoroughfare behind the woods.  Winter blows.  Except for pretty snowy mornings.  They can stay.

Summer Photo Dump

Thank you SO much for the baby love! I have much to share but wanted to quick dump some photos from our recent travels… obviously I needed to explain the big old tumm-a-lumm first! We just got back from a lake trip with my family (lakes… not as lame as they sound!) and some Jersey time with Jeff’s family.  After a crazy summer I’m feeling a little more recharged after having spent a week and a half off the radar.  Very lucky.

Gracie at the helm… is my sister hot or what? I told her she looked like a Bond girl here…

Have I introduced you to my family’s goofball lab Bruce? Bruuuuce!

Doggie butts…

I should get a girl scout patch or something for jumping in nasty lake water… very happy I seem to have come out parasite free! It was just too tempting to resist…

Preggies can have fun too!

Aww the fam… PRECIOUS

Meanwhile, a little further south…

Omg more gratuitous beach belly pictures forgive me….

From the Weekend

I don’t need nice things.  Just give me a few warm, sunshine-y months with a deck to sit on, and I’m good.

You know it’s a beautiful weekend when material like this is coming out of your crappy blackberry camera…

And if a boat can somehow be worked into the equation? HEAVEN.  OK I take that back about nice things.  Boats are not the worst.

Nature=Cool

The view from the Southwest waterfront last night…

Insert Sir-Mix-a-Lot Lyrics

A few more (uhh, 14) pictures from the road.  All of Mallard butts.  Nothing like feather-tufted-tocks and splayed-out-orange-leggies to get your week off on the right foot! (webbed foot)

Back in the USSR

HIIIIIII!

Home sweet home! Work event was successful but most importantly… done!  Each time I am in the depths of pre-event stress, I always envision myself as being hyper, giddy, beside myself with joy when everything’s over.  In reality, I am just pooped, and out of it, and mostly just relieved.  I’m now enjoying a delightful long weekend, and it feels strange to go from so much frenzy and activity to sleeping in and hanging around a quiet house.

Let’s see.  Everything started with me dropping Choocheroo at the Petsmart Hotel, which if you read my Twitter, you know went UN-good.  Umm, you know that moment when you’re so stressed but holding it all together, until something TOTALLY DUMB comes along, shatters your facade, and sends you crumpling to an emotional breakdown? For me that was parting with my dog.  I couldn’t stop crying. SO PATHETIC.

Oh Chooch, bless his heart.  We get there and he is crying, splaying out all 4 limbs while I try to drag him in… then I scooped him up and nuzzled him and he is still crying and shaking.  YOU WOULD HAVE LOST IT TOO.  Then I consented to an extra $20 a day for him to get the deluxe playtime option.  Then an extra $5 for daily frozen yogurt treats and peanut butter kongs.  I REPEAT.  PATHETIC.

Anyway, our office was transported to the greater Phoenix-Scottsdale area for a week and everything went well.

First, Chooch helped me pack…

I love him with his little elephant cuddly tucked under his arm.  All is forgiven.

Frontier is officially my new airline of choice since each jet is branded with a different adorably-named animal.  Did you know this?!

Sherman!

Kinda hard to see but this bird was hanging out under this bush every morning…

This was a quail on top of this building… Don’t know that I’d ever seen one in the wild…

 

Pretty resort, huh? Unfortunately our stomping grounds for the week was our windowless “staff office”…

Would it be weird to pin a grainy blackberry picture? This was pink lemonade with jalepeno! Oddly yummy.

NOM…

Kay I’m going outside.  Be back later.

Photo Dump

Once upon a time in 2007 I was walking down the street and discovered a hot dog laying discarded on the sidewalk.  No bun.  No hot dog accoutrements in sight.  Just… a lone frank.  I don’t know why things like this crack me up, but if I had to define my sense of humor with one example, it would be that I find things like hot dogs on the sidewalk to be massively lol-worthy.

I took a picture of it with my awesome Samsung flip phone and up it went on my old blog.  I marveled at my ability to capture this magical processed meat moment with cell phone camera technology, which if you recall was just starting to get decent at that point.  Today, I am no less in awe of this amazing novelty that allows you to document life’s small and hilarious moments as they happen.

So following in the proud footsteps of Hot Dog on H Street I bring you…. Pineapple Top at Metro Station:

On that same note, check out this purdy sky from last night…

US Air shuttle + moon…

Check out this sandwich special action from one of my lunch places…

Who wrote this sign? I want to high five them! Loving the exclamation point action… omg yes FRENCH ROLL I share your excitement! WOO!

I already “tweeted” this so sorry for the dup but wanted to make sure errrrryone saw this hot mess driving down the street.

Whatever… the other week the Occupy-ers blockaded our office building and we had to walk up a ramp in the loading dock in the pouring rain…. If you know how clumsy I am, you know how close I was that day to breaking a femur.  So the crazies from the other side can have their day too.  Sigh.

Did you think I’d go this whole time and not put up Chooch pictures?! PSSHH! Here he is loving the Yoga mat…

And performing a beautiful interpretation of a seated twist (with model for perspective)

Good Morning

This may be my neurosis talking, but I swear I am such a healthier human in the spring and summer.  Everything in the world is better when it’s sunny and above 55.

Our neighborhood is getting so pretty with the spring and every morning I think on my morning walk with Chooch that I should really bring a real, non-blackberry camera before it changes.

Thursday-Sunday Stuff

On Thursday my chick-buddy emailed me at, like, 4:00pm saying that due to a flake-out she had an extra ticket to OAR at 7:00, did I want to go.  Boring Debbie Downer Sarah was all “AHEM you know our policy on weeknight concerts” but Your-Days-to-be-Spontaneous-Are-Numbered Sarah was all “WOOOOO OAR!!!!!”.  Guess who won!

OAR.  What a fun 2005 throw back!

Sunset as seen from the Metro tracks…

This weekend we were back to PA again… Jeff’s side this time. We went to the Preview Party for the Philadelphia Flower Show and it was really cool.  I mean, it was no Farm Show, but pretty cool.

And only one giant curling iron burn was required to make me black tie appropriate… Yay!

OK, I was lol-ing at the judges’ criticisms of the arrangements.  What jerks!

And pretti-tude from the drive home…

The end…

 

BACK!

Holy poopsticks y’all.  It felt like we were gone for the blink of an eye, but going back to work and seeing “December 22″ still on my page-a-day reminds me that it’s been a bit of a while.  Crap. 

So, we’ve been in Florida for the last week with Jeff’s family, and I’ll stop there since I know the last thing the world needs (in January) is some dumb blogger posting palm tree pictures and blabbing about her adventures in the greater West Palm Beach region.  You should know that any smugness I may have carried back with me was promptly wiped away by the stinging, 30-degree winds that greeted us back here in the Mid-Atlantic.  That there is the meteorological equivalent of a big ol’ slice of humble pie.

Also if it makes you feel better, you should know that I have been mauled by mosquitos within an inch of my life, and that all day I’ve been plunging my hand down my tights/up my sweater in fits of scratching fervor like some crazy meth addict.  A functional meth addict that wears cardigans and cute tights, you know.  No seriously, I’m bit up from head to toe and it’s freaking disgusting.  At least I’m hoping it’s just mosquitos and not some horrible, mysterious, tropical affliction.  Yesterday on that note I had another Great Moments in Generalized Anxiety personal moment… I’m standing at the mirror surveying the damage and my inner monologue was like, Gosh this is a lot of mosquito bites.  I mean, it looks like I have small po…OH MY GOD I  HAVE SMALL POX!!!!!!! Wait, no, that’s gone right? Some other kind of pox maybe?

Healthy!  

So I’ll spare you trees and sun-flare pictures and instead give you this one of me and my pork roast of a right arm sleeping all sexy-like by the pool (thanks husband for capturing this magic moment… jerk).

And a bunch of gorggggeeeouuusss sunsets from the plane.  The view from up there never gets old.  Unreal.