Rambles. Lots of Them.

Alright friends here's the deal. I've sat in front of my computer for the last few nights in a row trying to blog. The end result has been a total of three drafts (all of which are unfinished) and the last 60 minutes spent sitting here listening to my "Shhh" playlist on iTunes trying to get me in the writing mood. Ugh, why is this so hard lately? I used to be teeming with post ideas and anecdotes. I feel like I don't have either anymore. And also I finished my wine so I'm sure that's not helping me either. ...the fact that I ran out of wine, not that I drank too much of it. There's no such thing as too much wine. That could be argued, actually, now that I think about it.

Anyway, we're gonna go the "write whatever comes to your head first" route tonight and see if we can't get anything done.

Firstly, I would just like to share with you my new desktop background:

It's kind of bad ass. College football starts in 30-some-odd days and if I wasn't getting excited before, I am now. Cause you know, desktop backgrounds have that effect on me? But seriously, I kept minimizing all my windows at work the other day just so I could stare at it for a few minutes at a time. Go Devils.

This afternoon spontaneously turned out to be a pleasant work-from-home-Tuesday which was both spontaneous and pleasant. But I already used those adjectives now that I'm re-reading that sentence. Also, "work-from-home-Tuesday" doesn't quite have the same ring to it as "work-from-home-Friday," which is usually my work from home day. I like to put on NBC and watch the Today Show, Live with Kelly and Michael, and Kathy Lee and Hoda. Kathy Lee and Hoda are always drinking wine. At like 11 in the morning. Someone tell me how to get that job please.

Speaking of jobs, I took an "ergonomics assessment" at work the other day. I didn't think "ergonomics" was a real word, let alone had its own department and assessments and experts. But boy do they. I learned all about good posture and appropriate placement of my office equipment...and I also learned I'm doing it all wrong. But is it just me or are the little pictures and arrows on your chair levers kind of confusing? I feel like I'm looking at a set of Ikea assembly instructions. Which I can also never figure out.

Life is too short to spend it trying to understand Ikea assembly instructions am I right?

I worked out the other day and found myself stuck on the ground cause I was too tired to stand up. I said "Nate help! I'm tired and I can't get up!" And then he said "I'll let you lay there until you're able to." And then I gave him the stink-eye and he said "What? That's helping people. Having them learn to do things on their own."
Oh. Ok.

My new favorite adverb is "wildy."
"You've been wildly helpful"
"I had a wildly good time"
Tell me that adverb doesn't make every sentence sound more lively. ...People pick favorite adverbs right??

Ok, please just look at this auto-correct:

What in the hell?? I found it wildly funny (see what I did there?). Also, for the record, I Googled "Khrushchev" and turns out he was the former Secretary General of the communist party of the Soviet Union in like, the 1950s. Or something.

So I've come to the conclusion that out of all the hours of the day Happy Hour is my favorite hour. Mostly because it involves drinks, and food, and drinks, and friends like these:

Jennica from Strawberries and Wine and Rhea from Hot Dog Food Blog and I went to school together since like, elementary school? And we were cheerleaders together in high school and now we happy hour together cause we're adults like that. And conveniently we all have blogs now so we do a little blog talk too. I just love good friends. And good Happy Hours.

And I'll end on that note. Cause that's a good note to end on right?

Weekending: Canyon Lake (and a few other things) Edition

Ok you guys, I had a really fun weekend. And because I had a fun weekend, it makes me wanna blog about it. So here I am. Blogging. Also, I'm two glasses in of Sauvignon Blanc (spell check has to help me every time on that one) which also puts me in a blogging mood.

A good Friday always makes the weekend feel longer, and I indeed had a good Friday this week. I met up with my dear friend Jennica from Strawberries and Wine and we ate sushi and ice cream and drank wine and watched movies.

Sushi is a new thing for me. Jennica got me into it, and she still orders for me cause I don't know what anything is...I just know it tastes good. I tell her I don't want like, the really raw stuff (or else I'll gag) but I love shrimp and crab and she picks out the stuff and orders it. That's a good friend if you ask me. Friends don't let friends order sushi if they don't know what things are. Is that a grammatically correct sentence? Sounds weird. ...You know what else sounds weird that really isn't? Wine and ice cream. I know you're supposed to pair your wine with like, chicken or fish or like, an actual meal or something, but really it goes fantastic with a pint of ice cream. Then again I often count ice cream as an "actual meal" so it works out.

Saturday I spent the day at Canyon Lake with my family. There was swimming, and floaties, and kayaks, and fishing poles. And it was fun.

K but really, what is this face and why was I making it all day long??

Also, what is this face??

Stage 5 clingers:

Stage 5 creeper:

Stage 5 lovers:

Ugh, sorry. That was inappropriate.

Can you spot my mom and I?

Yaks on 'yaks on 'yaks...

Oh also, there was this guy that jumped 115 feet off a cliff and almost died and Nate had to rescue him and save his life.
True story.
Nate was fishing in his 'yak nearby when the guy jumped and landed wrong, and since no one in the guys' party was helping him (cause they're idiots), Nate went over, grabbed the guy, dragged (drug?) him in with one hand, and paddled with the other to shore and carried him up to flat ground. He ordered someone to call 911 and the guy had to be evacuated via helicopter with a collapsed sternum and a punctured lung. So you know, just another day in the life of Nate...saving cliff jumpers lives ...one bad landing at a time.

Sunday, I hung out with my dear friend Charlene all day and we swam, and tanned (err, burned mostly, but it'll turn to a tan I promise), and floated, and had a fantastic day in the pool.

No one's life had to be saved. Which was good considering Nate wasn't with us and he's the expert life saver, obviously. I've never had to save anyone's life before. Maybe that should be a disclaimer when I hang out with people... "Listen, if anything happens and your life needs to be saved, I might need to just call Nate real quick cause he's the expert life-saver."

So you know, a really good weekend always makes Monday that much harder. Especially when you're like 4 glasses of Sauvignon Blanc in, and it's taken you double the time to finish this blog post than it should've...it might be a rough Monday.

Happy Monday Friends!

5 Ways Catfish the TV Show is Like Catfishing in Real Life

At least 3-4 times a week when Kailey and Brianna and I are texting, someone says "Guys, what should I blog about?" The answers usually consist of things like "Why does my yoga mat smell like feet?," "Reasons Carissa should get a new yoga mat," "The texture of Quinoa pasta," "How you might bathe in ice cream"...and so on and so forth. But every once in a while, once of us has a good idea (not to say the aforementioned aren't good ideas, of course). And yesterday it was Kailey who had that good idea and so I'm stealing it. But we're friends so we share intellectual copyrights (i.e. I can steal her ideas - or at least use her answers when I ask "Guys, what should I blog about?").

5 Ways Catfish the TV show is Like Catfishing in Real Life
(...or, I went catfishing this weekend and this is my way to avoid a typical 'weekend recap' post)
Disclaimer: if you haven't seen Catfish the TV show, Google it now or else the rest of this post won't make sense

1.) What you think you've got, isn't always what you got
Anyone who meets people online knows the risk that the person on the other side of the computer screen might not actually be the person they say they are (hey, there was a time when I thought Kailey and/or Brianna might be a middle-aged man with a beer gut and uneven sideburns). But you might say the same when it comes to fishing for real catfish. It feels like there's a bite on your line - is it a catfish? Or Is it tree branches caught in a tangled mess? Or Is your line snagged underneath a rock?  You never know until you reel that sucker in.

2.) You stay up all night trying to make a connection
Catfish feed at night, thus requiring you to stay up all night in case you get a bite. I've never online dated, but you can't tell me virtual booty calls happen at 1 in the afternoon right?

 3.) It might drive you to drink
The guy you've been talking to online is not actually a guy?? That catfish swam by, nabbed your bait, and kept on swimming leaving your hook bait-less there in the water??
Drink up buttercup.

Although for the record, I don't need a tragedy to make me drink wine. I do that on my own free will.

4.) Size matters
Little fish:

Big Fish:

5.) Often times you have to travel to meet your catfish face to face

A lot of people are making connections with catfish who live miles and miles away from them, requiring travel in order to meet anyone in person. Bartlett Lake is like, an hour from where I live, so you know, I have to drive there. And catfish migrate and stuff (right?). So that counts as traveling too.

5.) Stink bait
There's this putty that you can use as bait for catfish, and the stuff smells terrible. Like, horrible. I feel like if ever you're in a relationship(ish) with someone you met online and you start to get a feeling that they're a fake and you start to notice all these red flags, you should call stink bait. Like, we should make that a thing. Like, the person isn't covering their tracks and they're being a bad catfish (or, would they be the catfisher?) - they're a stink bait. I just made all that up but I feel like it could work. Let's make "stink bait" happen k guys? ...the saying, not the actual act of tricking someone online into thinking you're someone you're not. Ugh, you know what I mean.

6.) Sometimes, things might actually work out.
You might catch a catfish. You might catch a human (the right human). Sometimes the odds are ever in your favor.

Someone Tell Me How to Spell Catfishing

Hi friends. In my last post I alluded to the fact that some fun things happened in between the last time I blogged and the 4th of July. One of those fun things was Nate's birthday. We spent his birthday weekend out at Bartlett Lake for some catfishing ...is catfishing a word? One word? Two words? Spell check keeps giving me the red line, but I'm gonna go with one word for now cause this is my blog and I can make things up like that. Either way, the weekend was at Bartlett Lake and we fished for catfish. There.

Anyway, the moral of the story is it was freakin' hot. Bartlett is the same temps as the Valley, which means we were out there all day Saturday in well over 100 degree heat. It was rough. For a while there I didn't know what to do with myself but sit there and think about how hot it was.

It was too hot for a tent, so we just threw up the Easy-Up, attached a few Velcro "walls" to block the wind and sun, and set up our cots for the night...and also a happy birthday banner cause cause you know, Nate's birthday.

I wanted him to wear a button, but he refused to let me pin it on him, so this was the best I could get:

See the "birthday boy" button on his hat? He hated it. I loved it. So the usual basically.

The heat was no match for the dogs who basically spent the entire afternoon in the water. Maycee would just swim around until she could find a stick to bring back. Sometimes she didn't find a stick all that quickly, so she just swam and swam until she did.

Gunther, enforcing the no wake zone. Or something.

Since we didn't have a tent I was having a hard time figuring out how/where to change into my bathing suit. I finally found a break in the boat traffic driving by, crouched behind a chair, crossed my fingers that no one would see me in all my non-clothed glory and swapped by sweaty clothes for my suit. ...bathing suit, not birthday suit just to be clear. 

When the sun started to set it was time to set the lines and hook some catfish. What were we doing all day you ask? Catching bait fish - Blue Gill - the stuff the cat fish eat. And when I say "we" I just mean Nate. I was too busy thinking about how hot it was and frolicking in the water trying not to die via melting. Oof, death by melting...that'd be a rough way to go. 

In the meantime, I busted out the birthday cake cause remember, Nate's birthday?

I felt like a really good wife for once, cause I brought birthday stuff out camping with us and prepared ahead of time and finally had my shiz together for once. But hey, it's not about me on Nate's birthday, it's about Nate on Nate's birthday.

We ended up catching 2 catfish through the night, one at about 1am by my brother-in-law, and another one early morning.

Unfortunately, a catfish birthday present just wasn't in the cards for Nate or me. Or just Nate I mean, cause it's not about me on Nate's birthday. It's about Nate on Nate's birthday. And we had a fun day celebrating Nate (and a few catfish) on Nate's birthday.

Weekend-ing - 4th of July Edition

Oh hey guys. I'm a little embarrassed that I haven't blogged anything since Nate's birthday post, buuuut it is what it is I guess. Some fun things happened in between then and now that hopefully will make in onto the blog this week, but until then I'm just gonna give you a weekend recap of my 4th of July weekend. Cause it was fun...nothing extravagant and vacation-worthy, but still - fun. Fun enough to break out my freedom banner I made two years ago, cause it's too big to hang in the house year round, so I can kind of only use it for 4th of July's.

Per the usual, we ended up at my parents house to take full advantage of the pool. Cause really, what's the 4th of July without swimming and pool time? Except the day started out cloudy and overcast and out of all the freakin' days of the year, 4th of July is required to be sunny. Hellooooooo mother nature, get your shiz together. Fortunately, she took note and got her act together for the afternoon. 

The obligatory 4th of July family photo:

You guys, the dogs. Seriously, I know I'm biased but so cute right??

Maycee's like, less pictures, more throwing of the ball puh-leeeaaase.

Besides swimming and pool time, the 4th of July just isn't complete without my dear friend Tyah either. We've been spending 4th of July's together since 2005, with the exception of last year when she and her husband moved to South Carolina. But lucky me, since her husband is deployed and she's living back in AZ for grad school we were reunited for yet another 4th.

 Reunited and it felt so good. Maybe too good? Cause this is me snuggling a tequila bottle:

Oops

Good thing we had all this food to consume

Nate tried to pull the "you have to wait 30 minutes before swimming" card with me but I wasn't havin' it. Back to the pool we went.

He eventually joined us...

And Gunther, per the usual, gets a panic attack anytime someone goes under water.

It's funny and annoying all at the same time.

For the rest of the afternoon, Tyah and I dissolved into a puddle of margaritas and that's really all I can say about that. Exhibit A:

It took us a good while to compose ourselves before we could head over to Tyah's parent's to watch fireworks, but we eventually made it. And to that I say, better late then never cause we still caught the fireworks show.

And what's the 4th of July without blurry sparkler pics??

When Nate was deployed in Iraq I hung out with Tyah and her husband, who I've known and loved since the 7th grade, all the time. I loved being their third wheel because I never felt like a third wheel and it always made me think of Nate - which made me happy. I'm glad we could do the same for Tyah on this 4th of July when her husband is overseas. Cause the four of us, we always 4th of July together...even when someone is overseas fighting the good fight. The fight that we celebrate this very day, Independence Day.

It was a good 4th of July, as they all are. Cause we're a free people. A free people of the most amazing nation there ever was. There's a lot wrong with our republic...but there's a lot right. A lot more right, than wrong in fact. And I love to celebrate that. To celebrate how much is right and perfect and unique about our nation. And to celebrate the people that are brave enough to take a bullet for this nation. I think we should celebrate that on more than just the 4th of July.

So I hope you celebrated; in the best possible way I hope you celebrated and I hope you had a fantastic 4th of July!