Confession and Obession All Rolled Into One

This weekend when I haven't been at work I've been watching this:



It has horrible dialogue, crappy acting, implausible plot lines and a cheesy saxophone heavy soundtrack. The show focuses on teenage sex, and I really don't remember talking about the deed nearly as much as these kids do. Is this really how this generation of teenagers acts? Oy, it makes me not want to bring a baby into this world ever. Hell, I'm scared for my dog after watching this show. The latest plot line involves Grace, seen here with her boyfriend Jack:



She was very much for waiting to have sex until marriage. But, Jack slept with a lot of girls when they broke up earlier in the school year, so Grace decided she had to have sex to keep Jack interested. Her Dad, who she tells everything to (very unrealistic...I'm married and still haven't told my Dad I have sex with my husband cause that's awkward...I'm kinda dreading ever getting pregnant cause then I'll literally have to tell my Dad hey, I'm having sex and here's a baby on the way to prove it!), begs her to wait. He then gets on a plane to go to Africa to help sick kids. Grace takes this opportunity to bang it out with Jack, and her Dad's plane crashes and he dies. She jumps to the obvious conclusion: God is punishing her for having sex by killing her father. And because it was good sex, it was a horrible death. Say what? Really?

Oy who am I kidding I am dying to get home and watch the next episode.

Confession Time

I'm going to try to get back on the weekly blog posts regarding my obsession of the week. I haven't decided what I'm obsessed with this week, but as a companion to the posts I'm going to do confessions of the week as well. I think they fit nicely together - Obsession and Confession - they even rhyme!!

Anyway, my confession this week is I'm really not a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination. When I lived alone, I had a schedule of when I cleaned things - I did laundry on Saturdays, I did dishes basically as I needed to use them, toilets were brushed when I had people over, and deep cleaning happened once every...couple...ish...months. (Fine. Only if I was disgusted with the dust)I guess if it doesn't smell or seem to be a biohazard then it doesn't bother me. I could care less that there is dust on my ceiling fan. I could care less that there is a pile of shoes by the front door. Clutter doesn't bug me one bit.

Well, that was all well and good when I lived alone. Then I moved in with T, and I discovered he likes a very, very clean house. I knew he would soon see my lazy cleaning ways and leave me, but he didn't because I think he just continued with his routine and it didn't occur to him until we were married that I generally wasn't cleaning anything because he was doing it all.

In an effort to save our marriage (ok not really but let me have some made up drama, ok?) we decided to hire my mom to come and deep clean our house twice a month.

*Hangs head in shame*


She used to clean houses with a relative of ours to get some extra money before she went back to retail. Now that she can't work retail cause of her foot, she's bored out of her mind and so she jumped at the chance to do this. It lets her go at a slow pace and not hurt her foot and should her foot start bothering her she can just tell us no for the week. I think she thinks it is a sweet deal.

I'm trying to focus on the fact that it gives her something to do and helps my parents out with some money, but I'm still sorta embarrassed that I'm a 27 year old whose Mommy still cleans up after her. Though, it is so nice to climb into a bed that is made!

Ok, your turn. Confess something.

Mer & T's Excellent Adventure Part Two: Wait, It isn't Called MGM Studios Anymore?

So we woke up early (for us anyway) so we could get into MGM Studios and get some fast passes for the major rides like Rockin' Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror and the new Toy Story ride. We ran over to the dining hall to fill up our mugs...oh, I never mentioned the mugs! Each resort sells a refillable mug for like, $14 that you can use for unlimited refills on soft drinks, water, tea and coffee for as long as you are staying there. If you go over to another resort, you can use it there too. After doing the math, we decided this was a much better value than buying a drink everytime we ate at the resort. So every morning and evening we filled up our mugs multiple times. I recommend getting them if you go.

Anyway, we noticed on our way to the park that none of the signs or announcements referred to it as MGM Studios...it was referred to as Disney Studios. I was like, ok am I confused or what? I know we called it MGM the past two trips to Florida, but I had to know what the scoop was. I pulled out my handy dandy guidebook that my boss gave me as a gift (he's pretty awesome like that) and it explained that they changed the name when Disney parted ways with MGM. I didn't realize they did that, but I guess if you are no longer in business with a company you would want to get rid of their marketing presence in your park. I was glad to have that all cleared up, but honestly it will forever be MGM to me...just like the old grocery store in Crosby will be Jay's, not Arlen's.

We made it to the park and made a mad dash to the fast pass line for the Toy Story ride. Unfortunately, they ran out and the line was already close to 90 minutes long :(. We kept hoping that the line would dwindle, but it never did. I heard it is a really really awesome ride. We decided to go get a fast pass for Rockin' Roller Coaster and then get in line for Tower of Terror. I loved Tower of Terror when I was there with the band. I was all kinds of excited to ride it again. I should have realized, hey you are 12 years older now, your body may not like it as much...cause I did not have nearly as much fun. I'm not so sure I'll ride it ever again. T of course loved it.

We headed over to Rockin' Roller Coaster as our Fast Pass time was quickly approaching. I did not want to ride this coaster at all. I hate going in loops, and everyone said it was super awesome, which in my lingo means really intense and scary. But T begged me to ride with him and I couldn't say no. I should have said no. The initial 0 to 60 take off knocked the wind out of me. The rest of the ride was fine, though I was mildly panicked over if my purse was going to fly out from between my legs the whole damn time. Note to theme parks everywhere: If the guidebook says you have lockers, HAVE LOCKERS. I had a really hard time finding places to stow my purse on your rides, and you didn't provide a facility nearby for me to lock it in. It was kinda annoying. I need my purse to carry stuff in, like the expensive mug I bought from you or my park map or my sunscreen.

After the scary roller coaster, we decided to get some lunch. We found turkey legs, and turkey legs make me very happy. It was really tasty and big. In fact, I couldn't finish mine cause I was full but T almost picked the bone clean. The rest of the afternoon we mostly spent wandering around looking for Up! merchandise. Yeah, WDW seems to only focus on Toy Story and Cars when it comes to merchandise. Not a Wall-e or Dug to be seen :( We also watched the stunt show thing with cars. I found it incredibly boring. T thought it was "neat".

Overall:
MGM...I mean Disney Studios - quite fun
Tower of Terror - not for people who feel old, like me
Rockin' Roller Coaster - never. again. ever.
Lack of Lockers - annoying
Turkey Leg - Delicious
Stunt Show - a snooze

Next up in Mer and T's excellent adventure: Food and Wine and Fireworks, Oh My!

Whoops

So I now realize I haven't blogged in like, a month. Whoops. I'm sorry about that. I promise to do better. Again, here's what you've missed...

I got a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer for Christmas. I love it. I've made cookies with it, but I intend to make pies and cakes and cupcakes and meatballs too. Santa T did real good. It looks like this:



Unfortunately, I won't be making a huge amount of baked goods with my mixer, because I started Weight Watchers at the beginning of January. Yall, I need to get healthy, and one of the big parts of getting healthy is to lose some weight. It was really, really difficult to get on the scale, but I did and it was extremely humbling. But, I've lost two pounds without trying that hard. I've been good about thinking about what I eat at work. I eat breakfast now (Cheerios are great!) and I take a vitamin. Plus, I bring my food to work with me now, so I'm gonna be saving about $40 a week in food costs...which equals $160 a month...which equals almost $2k a year. I think T should be really proud of me. Now I just need to get thinking about my dinners and what we eat when I get home.


(Inspiration)

Sly is doing well. We've decided he needs to sleep in his own bed now. T is tired of having Sly lick him in the middle of the night. I personally see this as a sign of affection. T said that only I should be showing him affection with tongue. I told him he was gross.

That's all for now. I'll be back with more WDW reviews soon.

Mer & T's Excellent Adventure Part One: Onward to Orlando!

We just finished watching Easy A (really funny - I recommend it, especially if you ever had rumors spread about you in High School that weren't true because you will totally relate) and now we are sitting on our respective laptops not really interacting with one another, so I figured I'd start telling the story of our Excellent Adventure to Walt Disney World. I'm going to break this up into several parts, otherwise it'd get really long and honestly I don't think I can hold your attention that long. Ok ready? Here we go...

The day before we left we had to take Sly to the Dogs Day Inn. I was really, really paranoid that he was going to bite one of the workers cause we all know Sly doesn't like anyone but Mommy, Daddy and Aunt B. Lucky for us, he was all excited to meet his temporary caretaker and didn't even fight them when they took him away. I was sad because they didn't really let me say goodbye. I pouted for five whole minutes before T pulled into Culvers to buy me an ice cream cone to make me stop pouting. It worked.

We then got up at the ass-crack of dawn because we had a flight to catch. Dad was nice enough to take us to the airport. Normally I'd be complacent about catching a flight, but I was super excited for two reasons. The obvious reason was because hello we were going to that happiest place on Earth. The other reason I was super excited: We had two tickets in first class bitches!! I was checking us in online and noticed we could upgrade for like, $140 total and normally it costs well over a grand per ticket to fly first so we took Continental up on their offer. It was fabulous. I wish I had the money to fly first all the time. Yall, they served us breakfast on real plates. That's right, no plastic little tray thing with a wrapped up sandwich. We had cereal, fresh fruit, yogurt, orange juice and vodka. We also got the hot towel. I'm pretty sure the flight attendant thought we were ridiculous but we didn't care. They also let us have the direct TV thing free, which really helps to pass the time. Overall, best flight of my life.

We landed in Orlando and made our way to the Disney Magical Express, the shuttle bus that would take us directly to our hotel on the Walt Disney World property. It was really convenient. We only waited about twenty minutes for a bus, and it was awesome people watching time. Lots of families with kids who were really, really excited. Their excitement was infectious.

We made our way to the Port Orleans: Riverside resort. It was a really cute hotel. Overall it was what we needed for a last minute vacation: a place to sleep and relax. I think the next time we go to Walt Disney World we'll splurge on one of the deluxe hotels. Port Orleans only had one dining hall and one sit down restaurant, which really wasn't enough of a selection. I think the other resorts have more food variety. The bed was comfortable and the bathroom was fine. It was a great place for a vacation on a budget.

We checked in and dropped our bags off in our room. We grabbed a bite to eat at the dining hall and then headed off to Animal Kingdom. I have to give a shout out to Becky for really helping us out with our last minute vacation. She was so very helpful with everything - Becky if you are reading this THANK YOU for everything!!! If you have a group and want to take them to Disney World, let me know and I'll put you in touch with Becky...she's one of their group sales peeps and I think she'd really help you get the most magical vacation of your life.

Animal Kingdom was great. We went on Expedition Everest first. I screamed the whole time...in T's ear. It was fun, and I bought a bobble head Yeti as a token of surviving the ride. Then we went on the safari ride thing to see some animals. It was cute and corny. We finished up the trip (we only had two hours in the park before it closed) with the Bug's Life movie - super cute!! We then headed back to the hotel to rest for a bit so we could finish out the night at Epcot...but we fell asleep and ended up not going. I guess we were tired because we were up so early - oops.

Ok so recap:
First Class - Awesome
Disney's Magical Express - Convenient
Port Orlean's Riverside - Good Value, but not enough food options
Animal Kingdom - Fun, but more fun if you have kids

Tune in for Part 2 of Mer & T's Excellent Adventure: Wait it isn't called MGM anymore? Oh my bad...

Toodles!

The Power!!

I just wanted to take a minute while at work to say carrying around a walkie-talkie makes me feel real powerful. I sorta grow an internal set of cajones and suddenly feel like I can stand up to people who mess with my peeps. So if you see me walking around with a walkie-talkie, watch out...I may just bite your head off and call you a straight trippin' punk yo who doesn't know what the h-e-double hockey sticks they are talkin' about. (Ok so when I get an internal set of cajones I talk like a gangsta'. Word to yo' motha')

Life Happens

Hi ten people that read my blog!
I would apologize for the extended absence, but I'm following the thought process of another blogger I read who said that apologizing for not blogging is silly cause it generally means you are out living your life and are just too busy to type it all out. So here's what you've missed....

We have a new niece and she is pretty amazing. She was born on November 3rd, weighing in at 6lbs 15oz. I feel so blessed to be a part of this little girl's life from the start. It really makes me think about babies...as in I want one.

I know, I know, for the longest time I said I would never ever have kids. However, that was before T came into my life and now I want little baby T's running around. I think before I really couldn't comprehend loving someone so much that you want to just see that love in a little human form. For some odd reason I imagine our little boy to look like the cartoon Chicken Little:

I think I picture this because both T and I were really skinny kids and we have lots of dorky tendencies. I can tell my Mom is gearing up for the grandkids, and recently B demanded that I give her a baby to dress up and spoil soon. My Dad just wants me to finish my thesis before I have a kid, but I'm kinda hoping I get put on bed rest whilst pregnant and I can write it then as I won't have anything else I can do. I don't know when we'll actually have a kid...only time will tell. In the meantime I will spoil my nieces and get my baby fix that way.

We went to Disney World. It was amazing. I think I"ll do a review of the trip for my next post.

Sly is super awesome, even if he hates everyone except me, T & B. I love snuggling with my pups and I plan to spoil him rotten this Christmas. He currently has a small cold, and I need to take him to the vet cause every time he coughs it sounds like he's choking and that freaks me out big time.

Work is far too busy. The tour was successful and I'm glad it is done. I have some projects that I was hoping to be in charge of, but I don't know if that is really going to happen now. We'll see what the future holds with work.

I've cut a few people out of my life. Too much drama. I've decided that some people, whether or not they are family members, just don't deserve an invitation to the party that is my life anymore. And man, it feels good knowing I never have to set eyes on them again if I don't want to. Though I find I have a hard time avoiding them around the holidays. Luckily I have a plan for this year...I'll have to see if it works out and maybe I can use it again next year. If you knew the details (and some of you do) then you'd understand why I'm so harsh about this whole thing. If you want to know details, I'm more than happy to give you an earful.

Christmas is only two weeks away. I have several people to buy for still. This stresses me out.

Ok, I think you are mostly caught up now. I"ll be back soon(ish) with a Disney World Review. Until then...toodles!