Music at Work

So, I have a very desk-oriented job. {read: I sit on my a$$ all day, though now that I am ku'd I have a recurring appointment on my calendar to get up and walk around every 20 minutes or so}

Besides contributing to stagnancy and weight gain {inner monologue: "how was I so skinny in grad school? I ate out all the time, didn't work out...oh yeah, but I walked.everywhere"}a desk job is actually really great for grooving to some tunes. When I first started, I was issued headphones like these ones, just like all my other coworkers.

Aren't they cute?

Well, a few weeks ago, word came down from the top that wearing these headphones and listening to music makes us look "closed off" from students or other employees wandering around. So these headphones went in the drawer. We could still listen to music {though that was touch and go for a while} but we would need to use ear buds. Much smaller and less imposing looking.

The only ear buds I have are the set that I keep in my car for when I go to the gym. I need them to go to the gym. I hate working out. Like hate it. Not when I am actually there, or the feeling after - that is great (yay endorphins), but the whole getting dressed for it and actually dragging my butt to the gym - no thanks. It takes serious motivation. That motivation exists in the fact that i can still watch Food Network nonsense programming while I am on the treadmill/elliptical. 

Yup, I am that girl.

I need a distraction so that I don't just think about how exhausted I am or how much that hurts or whatever. Even when I was running regularly, back in the good old TLC days, I was not that girl that was all "just me and the road". Hello iPod. I can't be alone with my thoughts! Are you crazy? That's why I read. 

I am totally mentally healthy, no worries.

So, the ear buds have stayed in the car. Little reminders in my center dash to go.to.the.gym.already. Now that they are in my office however, you can certainly believe that this music policy has not only contributed to my stagnancy, but to the fact that I will never go to the gym again. Its fate has been sealed.

Don't worry though, someone is getting a workout. Those big ol' headphones. Since they aren't allowed on my head, they are being stretched to their limits on my belly, so Baby G can enjoy the tuneage too.

I hope (s)he enjoys fratbeats.com

I am going to be the BEST mom.

Why I love my husband

Reason #3,521

He got me this for Christmas!

A Canon Rebel T1i

Swoon. He got me a whole kit package deal that came with an extra lens and all sorts of jank that I have no idea how to use yet. You may remember that I have wanted one of these for for-ev-er.

But, now that Baby Gage is on the way, he finally agreed it was about time to invest in something nice. I need to practice with it, of course, but I am so excited to learn all the ins and outs of my new toy.

...now if only I could get home from work in time to use some natural light, maybe my skills would grow a little quicker...

Thanks Babe!

p.s. continuing the tradition of being the awesome wife that I am, Austin got an Xbox Kinect and a super fancy electric razor for Christmas. Something fun and something practical...like he will have time to shave when this baby arrives. Ha!

Italy Day 1 - Rome!

Thanks to the invention of Facebook (shout out to Zuckerburg) not all of the photos included in these recaps will be mine. But, my friends are gracious in their loaning so that I might tell a story.

We landed in Rome at 8:30 am Rome time after a 9 hour flight across the Atlantic, complete with freezing temperatures, crying babies, plenty of Unisom to go around and airplane food. Needless to say after a combined 8 hours of sleep between the six of us, we were raring to go!

In reality, we were all pretty hyped at the point of landing. The exhaustion would set in later.

Based on some research that I had done previous to our trip, we decided we would take the Leonardo Expressway from the airport to Rome's central train station and then hop on the Metro to our hotel. It would be cheap and easy to navigate, plus a taxi for a 45 minute ride from the airport? for 6 people and luggage? Who would want to do that? Oy. Oh, how little we knew.

Yay for Haley and her bendy tripod.

Rome! So excited!

Truth be told, the Leonardo Express was actually a great ride. We got comfy seats and got to see a lot of the 'suburbs' of Rome. Nothing better to welcome you to a new country than Saturday morning rituals of underwear clad men on their balconies. 

All the trouble started when we got to the Metro. It was easy enough to figure out where we should be going, get our tickets and head to the platform. But then we continued heading, and continued, and continued. We felt like we were journeying to the center of the earth. Up some stairs, down some stairs, rinse, repeat. You get the idea. Needless to say that with luggage in tow, we were very ready to be at our hotel by the time we finally got to the train.

We navigated the rest of the way and arrived at the beautiful Hotel Giulio Cesare. After a quick freshening up and meeting with the rest of our group, hey Jess and Adam! We hit the streets.

First order on the agenda was food. We were all starving and delirious, so we let the Herndon's lead the way, since they had beaten us there by a day and had a solid 8 hours of sleep. each.

Hey look! Vespas! Ciao.

We found a place that none of us remember the name of, but it was close to the Vatican, had menus in English, and said "pizzeria" out front. Done and done.

We had delicious pizza, that would become known as "cracker pizza" for the rest of the trip, a couple of cappuccinos, and we were raring to go hit the sites.

Yum, yum, double yum.

We jumped on the metro again, a much more enjoyable experience without the luggage, and headed to the Coliseum. 

When you come out of the metro station, up the escalators even, this is immediately what you see:

Seriously Rome? You are officially bringin' it.

And, the rest of our day in Rome was "ruin"ed. Ha. Get it? Haha. We said that all day. Clearly, we were still delirious. We allowed ourselves to get talked into joining a tour group to skip the lines and see the inside of the Coliseum, along with some other beautiful sites.

Austin was super pumped about this photo

This is part of the old palace grounds. Like Caesar's Palace. 

No, not that one. The actual Caesar's palace.

Austin really wanted to be a Roman soldier all day

On to the Pantheon

Rome is dirty. Just kidding, we love you Rome! 

But, we also loved our hand sanitizer.

Obligatory party shot inside the Pantheon... When in Rome...

After the pantheon, we decided it was time for dinner. No one has pictures of it to my knowledge because we all scarfed down dinner so fast the cameras didn't stand a chance. It wasn't one of our most memorable meals, but I had ravioli in butter and sage sauce. Butter y'all. Paula Deen would have been so proud.

After dinner we headed to the Trevi Fountain. Behold:

We were hot and tired and really wanted to jump inside the fountain.

As the sun began to set, we knew there was just one more thing we wanted to see in Rome - the Spanish Steps. So, we set out and found them.

The boys ran to the top, and we chilled for a bit before being lured to the top by promises of gelato. Then we straggled back to the hotel for showers and sweet, sweet sleep.

On to Florence!

What's in your purse?

So, this post idea has been bouncing around the blogosphere (see here, here and here) for a while now...and I may have been bored taking lunch at work.

The idea is you unload your purse, take a photo and throw it up on your blog with a list of the contents.

Baring your soul, as it were.

Contents:

• Checkbook that has seen better days.
• Coach wristlet, so much more convenient than a wallet when I am running out to get something
• Pocket sized Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States (yes, I am that Patriotic...why are you laughing? OK, not really. This was a gift at Austin's promotion ceremony that he promptly handed to me to hold on to)
• Flash drive
• My Palm Pre
• Notebook with my ever running to-do list
• An insane amount of pens, including one I think I stole from a dentist's office and a ZTA one I have had since I was a consultant
• Two cards that I need to mail
• C.O. Bigelow Mentha Lip Tint in Viole
• Sephora Maniac long wearing lipstick in no. 14 - Berry Mauve Shimmer
• Mints from Pier 1
• Contact case, with old contacts in it. Don't ask me why
• My much adored Ray-Bans - our love cannot be understood by mere mortals
• a gift card for Barnes & Noble

Confessions:

• I may or may not have also had a ridiculous amount of bobby pins and hair ties floating around in the bottom of my purse that I did not dig out
• Said hair accessories may or may not have enough hair in them to genetically implicate me in any crime scene I may randomly find myself in
• I did not include my keys in this post since they are never actually in my purse and I have wasted a good portion of my life hunting them down
• I may also keep all of my outdated and messy receipts contained in that wristlet and stuck in the pages of that notebook, so it only looks like I have a clean purse

What's in your wallet?

The Commissary

One of the best parts, for me, of being a military dependent is getting to shop at the commissary.

One of the worst parts of being a military dependent is getting to shop at the commissary.

The balance that you really need to be prepared for is all about the timing. The issue? Everyone who can use the commissary gets paid on the same day. Every two weeks, the 1st and the 15th. Like clockwork.

I had this facebook status up the other day

"Mentally preparing to go grocery shopping at the commissary after work. I am hoping we hit the balance between pay days where there won't be too many people, but it's not like shopping in Soviet Russia either..."

and for the uninitiated, let me explain it.

If you find yourself in need of groceries on the 1st or the 15th, it may be worth it to haul the family to Wendy's for a night and give yourself a buffer. Because let me tell you, if you head to the commissary on the 1st or 15th, you will think the end of the world is coming and nobody told you. Bumper to bumper shopping carts, screaming kids, I am not even sure you can imagine it if you haven't experienced it first hand. 

It gets so bad that there used to be arrows at the top of each aisle showing which way traffic went. And let me tell you, even if you didn't need one aisle, but needed the next one, you were going down that unnecessary aisle. The looks you received when going against the posted direction of traffic still give me chills. They have since taken the arrows away and it is pandemonium in there sometimes. I almost wish they would bring them back. Almost.

On the other hand if you wait until smack dab in between paydays, it is like shopping after the apocalypse. 

Actual commissary photo from here

Empty shelves, the worst in the selection of produce, you might as well just not even go. So, you hope for the best and tentatively shoot for the middle. 


Oh, and did I mention it closes at 7? So those 'after work' trips need to be planned to military precision, friends.


Please don't get me wrong. I love being able to shop at the commissary. The prices are right, which is a huge blessing, the food is typically great quality, and it is one of the only places you are pretty much guaranteed to run into someone you know. 


But, if you're gonna go - you had better have a battle plan.

The Grammar of Glamor

 As I wrote and published my post yesterday, I hesitated about publishing the word 'glamor'.

You see, I looked it up to be sure. Glamor is appropriate. It's just that most people are used to seeing it spelled 'glamour'.

The Mighty Red Pen did a great post about it here, for all the grammar nerds out there.

Here is the deal, I am used to seeing it spelled this way too...

Thanks Nicole, btw - you are fabulous.

But, I have this slight neurosis to deal with when writing this blog that comes in the form of those dreaded red squiggles. You know, the spelling ones.

See here:

 according to Microsoft

according to Google

Intriguing isn't it? Gah, what is a girl supposed to do?

I'll tell you what this girl does. This girl goes with less red squiggles.

Because that is glamorous. or glamourous. or whatever.

Hanging on the Barge

Remember how Austin takes me to all the nicest places?

Well, with the Burke going into the yards all of the people have been moved to a cozy little barge to live on until the ship is returned to the the sea. They haven't hooked up any TVs or anything so when Austin had duty on Sunday, he was bored. Besides standing watch there was little for him to do.

So, I rescued him with Uno.

Saturday will probably look strangely similar to this.

The glamor of life at sea.

Celebrating Birthdays at Work...

are made ten thousand times better by cupcake deliveries from best friends like one Corey R. Callahan.

How cute are they?

Being the southern gal that I am, please note I went right for the Red Velvet.

Yum.


Thanks Cur. CDC for life.

Is he wearing manpris?

A few weeks back we finally got to utilize Austin's anniversary present and go to the John Mayer concert! Woo!

Please ignore the flat hair. It was 200* outside. kthanks.

Upside: Love us some John Mayer.
Downside: It was approximately as hot as the surface of the sun.
Upside: They serve cold adult beverages there.
Downside: They are $10 each.

Apparently we didn't mind.

We hung out for a while, met up with some of our friends for a cooling beverage and headed to our seats. John came out, the lights came up and Austin's first reaction - "Is he wearing manpris?"

Not only did John rock some plaid manpris, but he also rocked navy blue Sperry's. He dressed for the beach, people.

He also made some funny faces

The concert was full of great music and great people to judge (I am looking at you, parents drinking mexican beer who brought their one year old baby girl to a loud rock concert and got seats right up in front of the speakers clearly way past her bedtime when it was 200 degrees outside after the sun went down).

We had a blast.

An Almost Perfect Game

Austin and I had a super relaxing and awesome weekend with friends and lots of board games.

Why board games? Because it was hot outside. Super hot.

Like, our temperature display in our car read 106* at several points this weekend kinda hot outside. Blech.

The good thing about board games? you play them inside.

This, my friends, is a picture of an almost perfect game of Scrabble.

Please note the even distribution of words throughout the board, and that we used every letter. Not a single person was left with a letter on their tray. Amazing.

Also, we neatly filled the score sheet by rounding out our game in the last box. Besides the fact that we got to play with our super awesome friends, Dan and Lisa.

You can thank Dan and his years of education for the word "tit" in the upper right hand corner, which has induced almost enough embarrassment for me to not post this picture (let's be real). Please note he also got a triple word score out of that intellectual contribution.

Yes, I know there are multiple meanings. Look it up if you don't know them.

But you know which one he meant. Gah.

So this was our almost perfect game.

Why "almost" you ask?

Well, because I didn't win of course.

Coming in second to the master mind behind the pursuit of the word "taquito" (can you find where it could have happened on the board?) will just have to be enough for me.

My Hunky Husband

Warning: this post may induce gagging in the faint of heart.

Isn't he dreamy?

Everyone who knows us knows one thing for sure - we love to tease one another. Giving each other a hard time is one of our favorite past times. You want to hear some snarky comments? Come hang out with us. You may have even gathered that from the tone of some posts on this very blog. But, when it comes down to it we don't really fight all that much.

Now, this is not to say that we don't have our squabbles from time to time, but the amount of knock down drag out fights we have had in almost ten years together {holy crap how did that happen?} can probably be counted on one hand. Maybe on two fingers. 

Last night, as we were in the car on our way to a wetting down, {where no one got thrown into the water, btw...a tradition I think is highly overlooked} we started talking about arguments, in general. We talked about how there have been a few men who have shown up at the ship, at night, when they are not on watch or duty, to sleep. It's sort of like the 'sleep on the couch' resolution - to the extreme. 

It's an unwritten rule in our relationship that we don't do things like that. No one has ever huffed off to go sleep in the guest room, or on the couch, and definitely not on the ship. 

Austin commented, "You know, you never really stay mad at me for very long."

To which, I shrugged. I don't hold grudges. I know that no matter what, at the end of the night, we are going to go up to bed. Together. And even if we haven't verbalized an apology, one of us will reach a foot out, or throw an arm over the other's side - and all will be well.

Sometimes that foot touch says more than "I'm sorry" ever could.

Besides, he's too cute to stay mad at, am I right?

Adventures in Automobiles

I am so behind on blogging. To make up for it, I have a hilarity inducing story.

Over the weekend of the 4th of July, Austin and I decided to hit up D.C. with some of our oldest friends. We had to wait until Saturday evening to leave for a few reasons.

1. Our car inspections expired in June and we hadn't gotten them done yet (Whoops. Come on ya'll, I have been in Georgia for two years where no one cared about annual car inspections.)
2. We had to pick up my pesky little sister from her ridiculously long globe trotting 30 day trip to Europe.

So, we got the car inspections done, picked up my pesky sis and were on our way. Please note that while the Civic failed inspection the Jeep passed with flying colors.

As we got such a late start we decided we would stop and grab some food so that our friends would not have to wait for us to arrive before eating. We stopped at a McDonald's in Dale City (Potomac Mills area). we loaded up with our Dollar Menu finds and headed back to the car - only for it to not start.

Clearly, this can't really be happening. We just had the car checked out this morning! Let's sit here and stay calm husband, and we will try it again.

Meanwhile husband is beginning to turn into the Incredible Hulk. (You won't like me when I'm angry...)

Austin chomps down his McDouble in approximately 2 bites, and tries again. Still no luck.

He swallows a fistful of fries, and his pride, and stomps across the parking lot to a man climbing into a very sporty Saab to ask for a jump. The man, being a nice and normal human being, of course agrees to try.

Fast forward twenty minutes while this poor man's nutritious meal is getting cold, we have had several failed attempts, and suddenly the engine turns over. Phew. Thank you so much, best of luck, happy 4th! etc etc.

Now, husband, knowing at least a normal amount for a man his age about car mechanics, knows that an alternator charges your car's battery. After such a lengthy jump attempt, we decide he had better sit in neutral with his foot on the gas for a bit to allow the alternator to work it's magic.

After 20 more minutes, we decide, we can probably let off the gas to shift into drive.

And it kills.

Insert photo of angry swearing husband I was too afraid to take at the time, but realllly wanted to, here. Oh, wait - I have a substitute.

Being the resourceful Girl Scout Gold Award winner that I am, I took a look at our surroundings. What is that I see over yonder? Is that a Kmart? Do those still exist? and since they clearly do since this one is staring back at me, do they sell car batteries? Please God.

We traipse down the hill to the Big K, well, I traipsed, repeating things like, We will totally laugh about this later, can't we just laugh about it now? and Austin stomped, on a mission, replying, This is not a laughing matter.


Ok, ok, geeze. We ran through the store, looking for the automotive section. I could have found it off the bat if it were a Target, or even if hard pressed in a Wal-Mart, but a Kmart? I am not familiar with this layout.

We finally found it and lo and behold they have car batteries. ThankyoubabyJesus.

After purchasing said battery and a wrench to install it with, we (read: Austin) carried that heavy thing back up the hill to the McDonald's parking lot. There, in the shadow of the Play Place neon lights, setting off minimal amounts of sparks, we installed our new car battery.

The car started right up, and we bought ice cream cones to celebrate.

In a strange twist of fate - I swear, you can't make this up - a young couple right across the parking lot was getting a jump as we left. We passed on word that K-Mart does indeed sell car batteries should they need one and suggested that ice cream would fix any residual feelings of distress.

As we pulled away from them and their good Samaritan, Austin started laughing.

Anniversary Trip

Way back when, like three weeks ago, I blogged about our upcoming wedding anniversary, that has now passed. Thanks to all of our sweet friends who sent us a little not or dropped us a line - we love you guys!

In that post, i also talked about gifts. Paper gifts. Well, good news! We did not get each other the same thing!

Here is what I got Austin:

John Mayer tickets!

He loves him some soulful ballads by one Mr. John Mayer. I thought that this was a genius idea, until I bought the ticket and the only option for delivery was paperless. 

Paper less? as in without paper? Which is the whole reason that I needed this specific gift in the first place? Youhavegottabefrigginkiddingme. Luckily, by using a little ingenuity (read: google) I found this site. Tres handy. And, he LOVED his present. He will love it even more after we go to the concert I am sure.

On the other hand he got me LOTS of paper. 

Paper in the form of reservation confirmations, paper in the form of tickets and badges and paper in the form of maps. All bearing this happy little logo.

He had everything planned for a glorious weekend in historic Colonial Williamsburg. We stayed on the grounds in the Williamsburg Lodge

In a room that looked sort of like this:

and we walked around here:

and we ate here:

by honest to goodness candlelight

We had drinks and coffee out on the town and overall had an amazing day.

But what trip to Williamsburg could end without a trip to the outlets? So we hit them up too where I may or may not have walked away with some J.Crew and Coach finds...

Thank you, thank you, thank you to my wonderful husband for planning such an awesome anniversary.

I love you babe. Here's to many more <3