Thursday, September 30, 2010

Milly's Great Escape

On several occassions now, Milly has broken out of her crate while we are gone.  I think it usually stems from her being angry that she is in her crate in the first place because she thinks that we just put her in there and we are not leaving (aka when someone takes FOREVER to get out the door).  She basically bangs on the door with her paw until she knocks the gate off of its not so sturdy hinges.



I don't think she has actually ever done any damage on these occassions, which leads me to believe we could actually leave her out in the house while we are gone as long as the house is clean.  I have tried leaving her out in the bedroom before (where her crate is), but she kind of freaks out and scratches at the door. I'm sure she'd calm down and get used to it, but the door may not appreciate this process.  She actually really likes her crate, and often goes in there on her own accord to take naps etc.   We might test the waters with letting her roam free though.

Here she is cackling about how she outsmarted us:

J/K...I caught her yawning, but this might be the funniest picture I have of her


And finally...one with her hero...

*tum-rub?, tum-rub?, can I get a treat? I'll lick your ear...* 




Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Things I'm Loving Right Now

1-The fact that Ukrop's freshly makes me bagels and then pre-slices them for me. It's the little things. (I generally choose Everything bagels, because they are plain bagels, but you feel more healthy because there are lots of little seeds on top making it "different")

2-Kraft Homestyle Macaroni & Cheese. It's slightly more work to make, but WELL worth it (I don't bake it because I don't have the proper dish, but you have that option and I feel like that would make it even better).

3-The fact that Milly has taken to sleeping in my lap a lot more often than she used to.

4-Quints by Surprise (new show on TLC) It's like J&K+8, but less yelling & anger/hair plugs and Ed Hardy.  If anyone else watches it, do you have any idea how she is so skinny? I saw her wearing a bikini in one episode...I think we all remember the "front butt" Kate Gosselin episode pre-tummy tuck.  Do you think she got a tummy tuck?

5-The days when it is cool/rainy and I can break out some of my fall gear. I have missed it. These days are VERY few and far between.

6-Friends. Old and New.

7-Making the effort to drive the extra few miles to get Chick-fil-a back into my life. I forgot how glorious it is.

8-Having my Nook phone app to use when I am bored in a public place.

9-Chapstick. Lots of Chapstick.

10-My DVR and my On Demand.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The Palmetto State

Last week I took off Thursday and Friday to make the trek down to South Carolina to meet my parents at the beach.  For the majority of our summers, we have gone to Wild Dunes at Isle of Palms near Charleston,SC.  This year, we stayed in a condo near the beach, since we knew that Andrew would not be able to come and we were just going to be there for a long weekend.

Here's the view from the top balcony.  Basically the only picture I thought to take the whole time:


It was mostly relaxing, except for the time that we realized one of my tires was visibly low and that the cause of it was my tire pressure taker thingy had broken off inside the cap.  Not good.  Two hours and mucho dinero later I had two new pressure sensors and was good to go.  


Unfortunately, Milly could not come on the trip.  I was forced to leave her with her least favorite person ever, as is clearly evidenced by this picture of her in distress. 



It's a little blurry, but I think the agony and fear clearly comes across... 
Actually, I think this face says more of a mix of "He's mine bi-atch" and "I know I can get whatever I want". 
Which leads me to my minor complaint that though I know Milly had a GRAND time spending some one-on-one time with Mr. Mike, I now have to deal with her new habit of whining/barking/circus dog two-leg walking at the area of the counter where she knows the basket with her treats is.  It's almost as if she's wondering why it's 12pm and she hasn't gotten her first bone of the day yet.  Weird.  

I always love Charleston, and wish that I had more time to spend down there.  I'm hoping that Mike and I can make it down there sometime soon (and by soon I mean like, the next year and a half-I have to keep my expectations reasonable).  

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

10 Things I Hate about Being a "Grown-Up"

It's been about 1.5 years since I graduated, and I've learned a lot about doing things for myself, but that doesn't mean I haven't gotten increasingly annoyed along the way. 

1-People who are dumb making my life more difficult.  I shouldn't have to explain things to people about THEIR job.  I also shouldn't have to spend 20 minutes calling you because you make a mistake. 

2-Health Insurance. No, actually I didn't buy health insurance so you can call everything a "pre-existing condition" just because I switched health insurance. No, its going to be a little difficult to get you continuing coverage letters for the last year since the laws say that I had to have separate health insurance for the 3 months of summer before I went back to school last August as a full-time student and then was able to switch back onto my dad's.  I literally shudder at the thought of how much more messed up it will get in Obama's hands.  Let's hope we can stall him for the next two years. 

3-Car Problems.  I really find it a big imposition to even put gas in my car. I wish a little leprechaun would jump out and do it for me while I sleep at night (I hear from certain individuals that I essentially can get this service once I obtain a husband, especially if I drive circles around the neighborhood until it's low enough).  You can thus imagine how annoyed I feel when something actually goes wrong with my car or it needs service.  Even more inconvenient is the fact that I have to take it in on a Saturday morning.  I'm hoping this improves now that I have rid myself of my high maintenance car. 

4-Landlords. I could write a novel on how awful ours is, but at least she fixes our problems (even if they are always "our fault"). I can't imagine how awful some people have it with the slumlords who leave your apt flooded for a week etc.  Let's just say it'd be really helpful if mine had an American accent and I couldn't see her back fat from her open sari whenever she came over. 

5-Grocery Shopping. I actually really like picking out food cause, duh, I love eating, but I wish I could increase the laziness factor expontentially and just pick it out from say my living room.  I try to make a point in going at off hours, but who wants to carry groceries to your door at night.  I get frustrated at the annoying people who leave their carts in the aisle, or look at the food by standing exactly in the middle of the aisle as if no one else is around.  In my part of town, there are also the fan rats who smell, look a mess, and complain about the lack of vegan food and ask their friend if "they can just go to trader joe's". Yeah, cause trader joe's is reallll hipster. Then there is the self-checkout, which I prefer because I avoid human interaction and, in the case of Ukrop's Martin's, the awkward walk to my car with the bagger.  However, self-checkout technology has not accounted for the reusable bag.  This is annoying and makes me feel retarded when really it is the incompetency of the system. 

6-Street Parking.  This one is unique to me because I live in the city and have to park on the street.  I'm a pretty fearless parallel parker at this point (just creep until you feel a tap, then you know its times for the opposite direction), but as usual its the OTHER people that annoy me. Mainly the fan rats who are living 8 to a tenament apartment and have their beat up, decal ridden hoopty's leave little space for me to park.  It's also sad when the best time to get a space is about 4:30 and 10:30 at night cause that it either when they go to their restaurant jobs or go "out" to do Lord knows what. 

6-Paying Bills. No, not the actual losing of the money. That's obvious. I mean the actual act of paying the bills. It's time consuming and annoying.  I need a leprechaun to do that too (or someone with a Masters in Accounting who will also put gas in my car). Know of anyone?

7-No Summer. Seriously summer, you mean nothing to me except you make me feel hot all the time and raise my AC bill.  I haven't gone on a bonafide, legitimate vacation in two summers.  I had a total of three days laying out. My "tan" is what most people look like in, ehhh, October.  This also includes lack of time off. No more "mental health days" after college. Or if you do take them, it's gonna cost ya (and probably only worsen your mental health)

8- Cooking.  This is especially hard when you have a non-functioning kitchen. I pretty much stick to boiling water, oven use, and microwave use.  I long for the days of my kitchen being clean, new, full of counter space, and containing a big, beautiful mixer.  It's a hard knock life being in between a real house and college dining hall.  Let's just say that my view of what constitutes a "dinner" has changed. 

9-Making Appointments. Dr's appointments. Dog Appointments. Car Appointments. Repairmen Appointments. Meetings.  Making them and keeping them-I'd rather not do it, thanks.

10-Responsiblity.  I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on this one, and this is the one that is truly the worst.  I've noticed that a lot of people my age have still not really gotten ahold of this concept yet, and there's no sight of them really grapsing it in the near future.  It's the whole notion of being accountable for your actions and actually taking the reigns on your life. It's not waiting around for other people to do things for you, but doing them yourself.  Most importantly, it's DOING THINGS YOU DON'T WANT TO DO.  It kills me when people complain about this (ok, I sometimes often complain, but I complain and then do it anyways. See the difference there?). I see it so often. People who would literally rather live a horrible life than do anything they don't want to. How much longer til they figure it out? It's a lot harder, but it feels pretty great. 

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

RHofNJ Reunion Part II



Okay, I have to admit that even though I was obviously excited for the second hour of this train wreck, it actually kind of got old as the show went on. They are all a little cooky (except of course for Caroline who is a goddess) and just watching side-step questions and be the victim got a little old.
She did still provide some humor though:

A-As I said, Danielle needs to learn how to lie better. Caroline is "lying" about her friend seeing her drive around Franklin Lakes, but we see Danielle's daughters telling her that "it's not a good idea" to just drive by one of their parties, when Danielle claims "oh, i'm not going to stop I just want to drive by and look".  Yeah, you stalk them every day Danielle, even your daughters admit it.

B-Danielle trying to deflect attention off the fact that she has questionable video tapes/gets around by now claiming to be a lesbian.......ok.

C-The hair pulling demonstration.  She brings in a wig to show how "hard" Ashley would have had to pull to get her weave out.  It ends up just proving that she's lying, because you can tell that Andy has to pull MUCH harder than Ashley did to get the hair out.

Also, Kim G. is psycho. Again, she's the queen of playing both sides and sadly that is way too close to reality for a lot of women in social circles.

Caroline should be the one becoming a lawyer instead of her son Albie (I say "becoming" loosely since he flunked out). She is the only one who just calmly but firmly demands that Danielle not lie to her. Pretty fantastic if you ask me.

Caroline makes me proud at the end because she keeps it real.  She doesn't all of a sudden forgive Danielle and do a fake hugging it out at the end.  How creeepppyyyy was that? That's exactly what I would do. Say "sorry, but I'm not going to participate in this BS", or "I'm no dummy" as Caroline says. 

Gah Caroline, you are so cool. 



PS-could it be?? There's more footage being shown next week? Whaaattttt....

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Mily's Photoshoot

This past weekend Milly and I went home to North Carolina to hang out with the fam.  We had a great time and Milly was EXHAUSTED when we got home due to the excessive walks and constant attention (neither of which she is used to).


Can't get enough Milly pics!

RHofNJ Reunion Recap


On Monday night, the greatly anticipated Reunion Part I episode of Real Housewives of New Jersey aired, and it did not disappoint.  It was the highest grossing episode of any of the Real Housewives seasons. 

I know I'm in the majority when I say that Danielle is one of the scariest people of any of the Real Housewives casts.  I mostly think her insane perspective on reality is pretty hilarious, but all too often her antics actually get to the point of getting me kind of angry/frustrated. 
I think this is because I have known people in my own life to blantantly lie about things that are obviously untrue and to manipulate friends into liking her while she uses them and then discards them when she is done with them by becoming "the victim".  She also has a really high opinion of herself and just sat there the whole episode, which i'm sure she thinks makes her "the better person" but in fact really creeped me out. 

My favorite NJ housewife is by far Caroline Manzo.  One she realized what "garbage" Danielle was she made a point of not interacting with her instead of picking fights.  When she did confront her in the last episode, she had a very eloquent speech prepared, and she had some great comebacks for Danielle.  Unfortunately, you can never really accomplish anything with Danielle because she just starts to fake cry and then get up and leave the room because "she doesn't deserve to be attacked". 
I've liked Caroline ever since she used the term "thick as thieves" to describe her bond to her family, but in the last two episodes she has become my role model (in the world of RH casts anyways). 

Of course, the highlight of the episode was Teresa freaking out and pushing down Andy (the host) and getting in Danielle's face.  The most hilarious part was Danielle chanting "Amazing Things and New Beginnings" repeatedly.  It's her new addition to chanting "Love & Light". Who comes up with this stuff?? It's always the instigators that pretend like they're all about peace and harmony. 

The highlight for me was Caroline telling off Danielle for crashing the charity event at her "family's place of business" the Brownstone, and telling her that she thinks her children have no light in their eyes (I wouldn't use that wording but its very true-they did not get a childhood and often have to give their mother advice on how to behave).  She is great at telling people what no one else will say to her face, and also staying calm so that Danielle can't claim she is being "attacked".  I look forward to next week when Caroline points out that Danielle has put out threats on all of them, and none of them have ever truly threatened her. 

On another note, if you watch the show you know that Albie Manzo got kicked out of law school for bad grades.  Mike & I (ok mainly me) were hoping that he would show up at UR Law to start his 1L year over.  After Mike's first day of classes he tried to convince me for a good 5 minutes that Albie was at school today, and I kind of started to believe him and got excited about my plan to become friends with him so we can find out all of the show's dirt.  He was making it up though :( so sad.  Even UR doesn't want lil Albie.  At least he can be a police officer...

This post really had no point.  More pointless banter next week after Part II airs! Hooray!