Why Charlotte, Why?

So Austin is home to the biggest Whole Foods in the country, and Susan and I have been having lunch there this week (yes, every day) and I'm obsessed with it. I've always loved Whole Foods, but when I get exposure to such a fabulous one, it makes me angry at Charlotte for not having one. I mean Winston-Salem has one for god's sake. That's not even a real city. What's the deal, Charlotte? Susan must have wondered aloud 30 times while we were eating today "I wonder what we can do to get one of these in Charlotte." And I couldn't agree more.

And no, Trader Joe's IS NOT an adequate Whole Foods substitute.

Obsession: Wii

Well, I had to leave for Austin Monday night, which is actually good because I needed some Wii detox time. I didn't realize it until Monday morning, but the console keeps a running total of the time you spend playing it daily, and when I looked at it, I realized that I am now one of those video game freak people.

We did go to the lake on Sunday afternoon and we did dinner out there, which was lovely. The weather was great, sunny and not too hot, and the water is up to 78 degrees. It was much fun. But not as fun as Wii.

Blake and I have become obsessed with the Wii Golf game. He is going to get the Tiger Woods Golf game either for my birthday, or before then if he can't control himself, because the Wii Golf game only has 9 holes...and it's so fun. You have to actually swing the controller to hit the ball and whatnot. We're getting progressively better at it. It's a bit like playing Golden Tee at the bar, but way better because it's in your own home and you get to swing the club.

I haven't had much luck finding Wii Fit for myself, so I'm hoping Blake will come through on that. We took a walk Saturday afternoon to Target and Best Buy and we played Rock Band a bit because it was on display. We were awful, but it was fun. So I definitely think I'll order that when it comes out for Wii next month.

And now, before I dedicate this blog to Wii rather than my life in general, I will briefly discuss Austin. It is hot as sin here, but the client has their shit together, so it's not all bad. Susan and I aren't flying out until Saturday morning (lame) but we have a nice little date planned for Friday night whereby we will go to fancy dinner (that we will run through on our expense report) and then see the Sex and the City Movie. Yay!

Ok back to work before Susan murders me.

Lesson learned: I shop when I'm angry

So I mentioned Speed Street in my last post...well apparently, the street parking that I have a city issued permit for can't be used during this debacle...and I was walking home from work yesterday and noticed that my car, and all of the other cars that were parked in the area, had been towed. It was after 5 at this point, so there was basically nothing that I could do to retrieve it. So I have to deal with that today. Bye bye $100 birthday cash from Blake's family. I was hoping to spend that on something not awful.

So anyway, I was obviously pissed about the car towing, so I decided to take a walk to release some steam. I wanted to walk to the new Best Buy and figure out what time it opened on Saturday so that I could be a Wii-buying-psycho. It's about 1.25 miles and it was really nice out yesterday, so it was a nice walk. And then I get there...and the Best Buy is OPEN. So I go in there an amass nearly $600 worth of Wii and accessories (thank you, tax rebate. I was really just doing my civic duty and putting that back into the economy, right?). And then I realize I have to walk home...and I'm scared that I'll get robbed if I walk all the way back with expensive electronics...fortunately Carrie was coming uptown and I was on her way so she picked me up and dropped me off at home.

Seriously, Wii is awesome. Even though there were several games I couldn't get because they were out of stock (Wii Fit, Mario Kart, Dance Dance Revolution, and Rock Band are officially on my birthday list), it was awesome. Before Blake got home, I set it up and played the Karaoke Revolution American Idol game...good times! And then after Blake ate dinner (and I had some cereal...I literally forgot to eat dinner because I was having so much fun) we played some Wii Sports. Before Blake had come home, I had made our Miis...which are little characters that you design to look like you and you play as them in some games. Blake's looks EXACTLY like him, it's hilarious. We played tennis, golf, bowling and baseball against each other, and then we boxed against the computer (I only got one nunchuck controller, which was necessary for boxing...we need to get another one so we can box each other). I was actually sweating at times. And it was ridiculously fun. And I haven't even opened Super Paper Mario, Mario Party 8, or Wii Play (more mini games like darts, pool, etc) yet.

So I'm in a much better mood now, regardless of my towed car, although it's going to be a bitch to pick it up today. And Blake got a speeding ticket on his way home last night, so we had a bad car day yesterday. But the Wii even put him in a better mood. It is awesome. I can barely contain myself at work right now because I want to go home and play games. Yay! :)

where have I been?

I haven't been a very good blogger lately. It's like every time I think to myself "you should update your blog" I then think "but I have nothing to say." I've been pretty busy-boring these past few weeks. When my Mom left on Mothers' Day, I had about 4 days to myself before Blake's parents came to town, and I was mostly lazy. I need a day off I think. So I may disappear from the office a bit early tomorrow if I get all of my shit done first.

I've been terrible at working out, which is bad. And now it's effing Speed Street in Charlotte for the weekend because of the NASCAR race, which means that it's almost impossible to walk around uptown due to all of the food and vendors and concert nonsense set up. It sounds fun, and it is when you don't have to avoid it to walk to work in the morning. And I couldn't even come up with a creative way to get to the gym yesterday, so it was a great excuse to be lazy and not go.

The new Best Buy that is a mile from my house right by the new Target is opening on Saturday, and as a Rewards Zone member, I was invited to a secret event from 6-8 last night and I botched BIG TIME. I want a Wii so bad, and they actually had them in stock, and I didn't buy one. I just couldn't pull the trigger. It didn't help that they didn't have Mario Kart, Dance Dance Revolution or Wii Fit in stock, because I want all of those games. If I was smart, I'd have bought the console and some Mario Party to get by. Because now I'm looking online, and the consoles are nowhere to be found. The store officially opens Saturday at 10am, so I may have to be one of those psychos waiting for the door to open so I can get my hands on a Wii. Blake went with me and offered to buy the console for me for my birthday, but then he said I couldn't open it until June 18th and I decided that I'd die if it was in my house and I couldn't use it, so I said no. Boo.

I haven't been cooking much lately due to the busy-ness. And I've been bad for lunch because we had horribly boring training for the past two days at work, so they catered lunch in and I figured there was no point in buying lunch food this week when I'd only need it for like two days. Monday I was good and just got a sandwich from the deli downstairs, so I'm going to try to do that again today. Tomorrow I have a date with the lovely Kirstin Washam, during which I will be jealous of how much she's allowed to eat because she's all pregnant and whatnot :)

I have to fly to Austin on Monday, so this weekend my goals are just to find some time to relax, probably go out to the lake, hit the mall and probably best buy, and do a bunch of cleaning and laundry. The boring life continues. Boo.

Chopping my hair off, and motivation loss

I left work early yesterday to get my hair cut. It had been getting WAY too long, and was in need of a cut for over a month when I was too busy to get it done. I heart it. My hair does exactly what I want it to when it is above my shoulders. I'll probably become angry when it starts growing though. I'll post pics soon, I forgot to unload my camera today.

Also, this happens about once a month (I wonder if laziness is related to my girlie cycle), but it's now the week that I have zero gym motivation. I'm still being really good about my food intake, but I have no motivation to go to the gym. What happened yesterday and today was this: I like to go to the gym after I eat my lunch as a break from work, but then I get consumed by my work until it's silly to leave for two hours because by the time I got back it would be like an hour before I'd go home. So I decide to go after work. But after work, all I want to do is go home and change and read and make dinner. Yesterday I even cleaned the railing and windows on the balcony instead of going to the gym (when I'd rather clean than do something else, it's serious).

So I'm letting myself off the hook today, but tomorrow and Friday I MUST hit the gym at lunch. Blake's family will be around this weekend, so I'm sure there will be a lot of food involved. And a bathing suit, which I'm not particularly excited about. Yes, I haven't gained weight in over three years, but I haven't really lost any either. I decided that I really should consider getting a trainer at the gym once or twice a week once my travel dies down so that maybe I can actually drop a few pounds. I have to price that. If I did a half hour of strength training with a trainer twice a week, it would probably help things. Provided that I could get my ass in gear on doing cardio as well. Plus it would force me to actually GO to the gym.

Ok, I'm out of here. I think I will go to Ulta and buy things to do my new hair with. That's an adequate gym substitute, right? I hate me.

Weekend Activities

This weekend was busy, but I got a lot done. My mom was in town. Saturday we went to the uptown Farmers' Market which was fabulous. We then got pedicures and went to the mall where I purchased a number of items. I did not, however, purchase the Coach bag that I planned to buy. I went to look at it again, and I like it and everything, but I don't know if I $600 like it. I'm going to wait for my birthday next month and reevaluate.

I bought two of the three pairs of Also shoes that I mentioned in my post last week: the yellow ones and the slingbacks. I didn't get the peep toe pumps because I got these at Steve Madden instead. They had a buy one get one 50% off thing going on and my mom was buying one pair, so I felt that I needed to get one too so we could both save some money. Here they are:

I couldn't give my money away at Banana Republic unfortunately (the navy blue dress I wanted looked terrible on. There was something really weird and poofy going on in the back). But I got this little pink and black number for $50 at the Ann Taylor Loft. I'm wearing it today without the ribbon belt, with the straps attached, and with a 3/4 sleeve black BR cardigan over it. I'm liking it.


I also got this green dress at Ann Taylor for Jessie Stew's wedding in a few weeks. I'm going to summer it up by adding the below jewelry that I got at Aldo and my new yellow shoes. You all know how I feel about dresses that enable me to wear my regular bras underneath, so this was clearly a winner. I'm pretty pumped up to go to Charleston for the festivities. It's gong to be a fun one.


Sunday, we went to Home Depot and started pricing the cabinets that we want to add in our dining area. It's looking like if we install them ourselves (and by ourselves I mean Blake, my dad, and possibly Susan's husband because he's an architect and he knows what he's doing), it'll cost roughly what our mortgage-interest-related tax refund was, so I think we should do it. As long as I can convince Blake that a built-in kegerator is asinine (he's 26. it is the worst idea ever, and it will destroy value we're attempting to add to our home), I think we'll do it. I'm pretty pumped for added cabinet space so that I can buy more appliances.

When my mom left, I made this recipe for dinner: Cheesy Baked Tortellini. I wanted to make something casserole-like because I'm going to want to eat leftovers tonight after Yoga since I'll get home too late to cook something new. I also needed marinara sauce for the recipe, so I tried this recipe out of my Everyday Italian cookbook. It's pretty good. Adding carrots and celery to marinara sauce is a little bit weird to me, but at least I'm sneaking in veggies to Blake's food so that he'll actually eat them.

That's about it. I slacked on the gym this weekend, so I'm heading back in full force today. Goal: to not pass out at the end of Yoga this week. Awesome.

Birthday Dinner

Blake's actual birthday is on Friday, but he's leaving tonight to go to Vegas with his friends for EW's bachelor party (God help us) so we celebrated last night. For my birthday, I usually insist on going out to dinner, but Blake hates going out to dinner because it's unhealthy and expensive, so he prefers that I cook something nice for him instead. I usually throw together some of his favorites and add dessert. Last year I made lemon chicken thighs, for example. But I wanted to try something different this year.

I broke out my new Everyday Italian cookbook and found this recipe for chicken piccata. Blake likes chicken piccata because it's lemony and because he likes capers. But I had never made it before. The recipe was easy to follow though, and it came out pretty good. My only suggestion if you are making this recipe is that you use only like half of the capers it suggests. I was already cutting the recipe in half because it was only for the two of us, and there were just way too many capers. I like them, but they're strong and salty, so I wound up throwing a lot of them away. For side dishes, I kept it simple with plain, Parmesan risotto and roasted asparagus (throw asparagus in a jelly roll pan with salt, pepper, garlic, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar; roast at 425 for 10 minutes).

For dessert, I made some chocolate mousse. Nothing fancy though. Blake's mom had sent us a box of chocolate mousse mix a while back because it's his favorite, so I just whipped (ha) that up. What was exciting about it is that I finally got to use the wire whip attachment on my stand mixer to make it. Apparently, chocolate mousse is basically slightly stiffer, chocolate flavored whipped cream. I threw some strawberries on top for show. I was so excited to break in my whip attachment. I have now successfully used all three of my mixer attachments. Yay.

I got Blake a Flyers jersey he's been talking about for months as a gift. He of course wanted the official jersey that the players wear, customized with his favorite player's info and a "C" on the front for captain. He was really excited about it. He figured I was getting him something Flyers-related, but he didn't think I'd be able to pull this jersey thing off correctly. He was borderline shocked that I knew which player to get and to get the "C" on the front and to get the new jersey (apparently they still sell last year's even though the team doesn't wear them anymore. I didn't even see those). It was pretty easy actually. I just found the most expensive customizable jersey on NHL.com and figured that was the right one. It was pricey, but he wore it around the house for about an hour and really liked it, so it was worth it. All in all, it was a pretty good birthday night.