Weekend time

I wanted to post at some point during the week this week, but then I realized that I had nothing to say because it was just a regular old week in Charlotte and I'm trying to not spend a ton of money right now so I haven't bought anything cool to share with the blogging world. Oh well. I think most of the time I prefer these boring weeks in Charlotte to having to be in New Orleans or something, so I can't complain.

This weekend should be at least a little bit exciting. Blake and his friends are going up to Raleigh tonight to see the Wake soccer game, followed by the Wake vs NC State football game tomorrow. So I'll have the house to myself. Tomorrow morning, Susan and I have a pizza making cooking class at Johnson & Wales which should be awesome, and then we're going to the mall to shop for dresses for the office Christmas party (and for me, at least one winter wedding). That will not be so fun. I loathe party dress shopping. But I like party shoe shopping, so at least I'll have that to look forward to. We're hoping that we'll go into Nordstrom's, find something immediately, and then not have to try on any more dresses.

Now that I've been back in Charlotte for a significant amount of time, and I've done a good job of getting a weekly schedule together for myself to include my gym, pilates, and yoga workouts, I've decided that it's about time to do something I've been wanting to do for a while but have been avoiding: going back to church. I usually hate going because I feel like I look like a loser at church all alone (Blake refuses to attend a Catholic mass). But seriously. It's church. People there shouldn't judge me for being alone (but they will. We're Catholics. It's what we do). Once I find a church that I'll actually attend every week, I'm thinking about joining the choir, because I haven't done any serious singing since I took a choir class junior year of college. And I'm pretty sure that because of that, I sound like shit right now. Also hobbies are good, so I should have more of them.

That's about it. I think I'm going to try to actually suffer through a full day of work today because I don't have to go to Winston this weekend or anything, so taking a half day sounds kind of pointless. I'll check back in next week to talk all about my cooking class, which I'm sure will be awesome. Have a good weekend, everyone! I'll leave you with this picture that Blake just took with his phone and emailed to me, of Norman inside of a shipping box (the quality's pretty bad because it's from a phone, but it's still cute).

This is the perfect little cubby for me!

'Tis a sad day

Today when I got to work I went about my normal morning web-surfing and apparently they've updated our firewalls so I can no longer get on Facebook from the office. F. I have no idea when I'll get on Facebook ever now since I don't have internet at home. I may have to convince my partner that I need to permanently have a broadband card so that I can go online from my house. Also, they have blocked thesuperficial.com, which makes me super sad. Thank god they haven't caught on to hulu yet.

This weekend was pretty good. Friday I left work early, got Thai Taste with Carrie, went to see Kristin and the baby (she is literally the cutest newborn I have ever seen), and did a fair amount of baking for the upcoming tailgate. I also tried out a new dinner recipe for a chicken and veggie casserole that was delicious. And, of course, I went to Target and spent some money. Naturally.

Saturday we had a big homecoming tailgate. Several of Blake's friends came down from DC for the game as a surprise, so it got a bit out of hand. But it was fun. EW made grilled pizzas for the food, and it was awesome. And we beat Virginia, which was a huge win. There's a decent chance we'll find ourselves back at the ACC Championship game this year, and I'm excited about it. We just have to win our next two games (and Maryland has to lose one of theirs). I'm definitely going to the ACC Championship game this year if we make it. I was unable to go when we made it there two years ago and I was sad.

Sunday I basically did laundry and cleaning and errands and I read a bit. Nothing too exciting. We were supposed to have training today at work, which was going to render me unable to go to the gym, but it has been cancelled, so that's good. Especially since I decided to be lazy on Friday again last week. I ate like an absolute asshat all weekend, so I need to get back into my normal habits. Tailgates are fun and all, but even though I don't drink at them I eat enough to destroy an entire week of healthy lifestyle. Not impressive.

Well, it's a normal week at work now. Except that my head is not in the game today because I expected to have training (and therefore would be able to zone our for 8 hours) and now I actually have to somehow convince my brain to process actual work. It's going to be a struggle.

Weekend

Guess what? it's Friday, and I'm actually in the office! It's weird. But I'm leaving at lunch time. I only have a few vacation days left to play around with so that I can roll enough into next year to take my trip to Italy.

Carrie's in town this weekend for Wake Homecoming, so we're going to Winston tomorrow for the football game. There was some talk about going to the Bobcats game tonight, but Tim couldn't get us free tickets, so I don't know what we're going to do. When I leave work this afternoon I'm going to hit the gym, do lunch with Carrie, and then do my tailgate-related baking. And possibly clean the kitchen...it's been looking pretty gross lately and I'm almost positive that is because Blake is playing chicken with me and refusing to clean it because he thinks I should do it. Which is fine because I was lazy last weekend and didn't mop like I was supposed to, so I'll accept my kitchen-cleaning fate.

I have to skip pilates tomorrow because I want to get a full tailgate in, but that's ok. I don't have much to do Sunday but the regular laundry and grocery shopping, so I may go to the gym to make up for it. Or I may go to Target and buy shit I don't need. That sounds more accurate.

That's about it. Nothing too exciting going on. I hope you all have lovely weekends and I'll check in again on Monday. :)

Good watching

Ok. I've mentioned a few times that I tend to listen to TV shows while I'm working, as if it's music. It actually helps me to concentrate when I have some episode of The Office that I've seen 1000 times on in the background for some reason. I don't know. But now I've watched every episode of The Office, 30 Rock, and Family Guy that are on Hulu.com like 30 times, and I'm not super duper busy right now so I figured I could watch something that requires a bit more attention (read: something that I can't recite word for word anyway).

I had heard a lot of good things about It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, so I went to see how many episodes Hulu had. Most networks only have the last 5 or 10 episodes that have aired available to watch. Not FX. FX is the shit. They have EVERY SINGLE EPISODE of the show on there. How could I resist? Monday afternoon, I put on Season 1 episode 1 to see how it went.

And oh my god you guys, I can't believe I've never watched it before. It's freaking hilarious. it's a bit like a 21st century Seinfeld, in that it's essentially a show about nothing, and the main cast is three dudes and a chick, but it is just completely ridiculous. If you've never seen it, you should give it a try. It's really just crazy good. It's funny in that "everyone on this show is a complete jackass" way. And I love it. I'm about midway through season 2, and I did think season 1 was funnier, but it's still pretty good. I highly recommend it.

Ok, I'm going to bounce from work now, I have to stop at the grocery store on the way home and I have pilates class at 7. Peace out.

Why?

Why is it so important for everyone to change their facebook status to something along the lines of "I voted!" today? Isn't that a little bit like making your status "I had lunch today?" Yes, you were supposed to vote and you did, congratulations. And yes, I realize that I discussed the fact that I voted on here the other day, but that was more to bitch about the three hour wait time than anything else.

Also - isn't there a reason why we vote by secret ballot? It's great that some people believe in something very strongly and openly support it, but openly supporting something is not the same as being openly belligerent about the opposing viewpoint. I feel like for the past several months, people have been jamming their preferred choice down my throat via putting down the other candidate's ideas. Isn't it a little sad that for some of us, we go to the polling location and vote for the lesser of two evils rather than someone that we 100% believe in? Because I gotta level with you, I did not 100% believe in either of the presidential candidates. I about 60% believed in who I voted for, and 80% hated what his opponent said, so that's how I made my decision.

And seriously, celebrities, you're regular people...stop throwing your ideas around like they should matter any more than mine or anyone else's. They don't. You're not famous because you're smart (I'm looking at you, Madonna. And Spencer Pratt. And Paris Hilton. And anyone else who didn't even bother to get a college degree but makes about 300 times the national average salary).

On this election day, I just sincerely hope that everyone (a) voted, (b) did a lot of research before they did so rather than relying on TV commercials and celebrity endorsements, and (c) realized that the current economic crisis wasn't completely caused by the Bush administration...it was caused about 50/50 by democrats and republicans. Using your vote as a punishment for the high price of gas is completely outrageous. You should be voting for the person that you think has the better way to get OUT of the crisis, not against the person whose party might have caused it.

Comment as you will...but I have no desire to know who you voted for. Just like I'm not going to tell you who I voted for. Let's try to get through this election with a shred of dignity here. That's more than the candidates can say, given the preponderance of negative ad campaigning that has been going on. Best thing about today being election day: no more having to watch effing political commercials. Thank GOD.

Good reads

I know I promised this post yesterday, but I got busy at work with some truly horrible nonsense, which will continue to plague me for the next two weeks, and will likely cause me to threaten to quit (again) but actually suck it up and stay here because no one is hiring right now. Anyway, I've been doing some reading lately, so I thought I'd share.

Several months ago, I was bored at the airport, so I wandered into the book store and picked up The Other Boleyn Girl. I hadn't seen the movie, but I am a huge dork who enjoys reading about European history as long as it's exciting. Enter the Historical Fiction genre. Basically the events that happen are all real, but the characters feelings and actions are fictional. A good historical fiction writer does a ridiculous amount of research before writing a book, and then you get to enjoy the fun book without having to deal with the boring research. See how fun that is? Anyway, the book was excellent, and I've always had a weird fascination with Tudor England (no, I've never watched The Tudors, because I don't subscribe to fancy movie channels, but I'm planning to rent the DVDs when I'm bored over Thanksgiving). Anyway, the book was excellent.

So I went to the author's website, and she has all sorts of stuff about research on there and about her books and whatnot, and I decided to buy The Constant Princess, which took place before The Other Boleyn Girl. It is about Katherine of Aragon. It was so good, that afterwards, I went back and re-read The Other Boleyn Girl in order to go in the correct time order (see? I'm dorky). Last week, I purchased and read The Boleyn Inheritance, which is about Henry VIII's marriages to Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard (wives 4 and 5). It was also excellent. The next book in time order should be The Virgin's Lover, about Elizabeth I. I started it last night.

Philippa Gregory's most recent book moves out of England and to Mary Queen of Scots, but it's not out in paperback yet, so I have yet to purchase it. Seriously. These are good books. I briefly searched for a good book to read about Marie Antoinette after seeing the Sofia Coppola movie, but never found one, so if I have any other dorks out there that know one, let me know.

Well, I have to get back to the grind now, so here's a brief summary: I'm a dork, buy these books, they are good. I'll try to update again soon.

How did this happen?

So remember my whole "I'm going to take the day off Friday and get lost of things done" routine? It wound up being crap. First, I decided to get to early voting ASAP because I had heard horror stories about the lines. So I went to the library when it opened and OH MY GOD. The uptown library takes up a full city block and the line was wrapped around the damn thing twice. I walked directly out and went to another place within walking distance. The line was much shorter, but it still took me THREE HOURS to vote. Well, it really took about 5 minutes to actually vote, but three hours to get into the room with the voting machines. Seriously. Crazy.

So that not only ate up a substantial portion of my day, but also put me in a foul mood. So I skipped working out and went directly to Target, ate a soft pretzel because I was STARVING from waiting to vote all damn day, and bought a bunch of stuff. Then I went home and made some chocolate rice crispy treats for the tailgate. Then Blake came home and proclaimed that he needed me to go ski jacket shopping with him, and when he added in dinner at Moe's rather than me having to cook, I joined. By the time we got home, it was after 9 and I still had to bake cookies. Crazy.

Saturday was a little bit better. I went to pilates in the morning and then stopped by Cooking Uptown before heading to Winston to sign me and Susan up for a cooking class in January that is all different kinds of risotto. You know how I love risotto. Then I headed up to the game, tailgated a bit, and then watched Wake come entirely too close to losing to Duke. Seriously. WTF. The game went into overtime, and if it hadn't been for Duke's missed field goal that caused us to go to overtime, or the awesome overtime interception by Wake in the end zone, we would have lost. TO DUKE. Not acceptable. The only think Duke is supposed to be better than us at is basketball. And that statement was all-inclusive.

We were super grateful for the extra hour of sleep Saturday night, because good lord, these football games really take it out of you. Yesterday was filled with chores and cleaning and such. I also made some tasty chicken marsala. And throughout last week and over the weekend, I read a book. There will be another post about that later. So, to sum it up, even my long weekend was busy. Good grief.

It's just another normal week in Charlotte now. I'm planning to post later or tomorrow with some suggested reading that I've been hoarding for quite some time.

Now I'd like to take just a minute to congratulate Kristin and David Washam on the birth of their baby girl, Lexie Blake Washam on Saturday night. Best wished to the family, and I hope I can come and see her next week. Look how freakin cute.