Halloween PARTY!

Laurie was nice enough to get us invited to a Halloween Party with a bunch of her friends. They take this party pretty seriously because not only are costumes mandatory, but you have to do a skit.

I'm pretty sure I have the best husband ever because when I told him what we were thinking about doing he said "As long as I can wear a cup, I'm in." That will make more sense in a minute.

Laurie's husband was out of town so we needed a skit with 2 girls and a guy....it was harder than you're thinking. Get your mind out of the gutter. We finally came up with re-enacting the VMA Award Show with Beyonce, Taylor Swift and Kanye.

But we added a little twist. Here it is!

We did tons better in practice, but with all the stripping and laughing we got a little distracted. Billy rocked it though and stole the show. They have awards for the best costume and best performance and we won for best performance!

Hope you had as much fun as we did this Halloween.

I'm Alive!

I've gotten enough phone calls and emails to light a fire under my tush to get this post done finally. You better appreciate it too because it took me forever to get all the pictures to go together and align right. Blogger needs to make the stupid window bigger. Anyway, without further ado, here it is. My New House!

This is the study. The previous owners had this awful unpainted tin in the window. I think it probably started out as a good idea, but then after they got it in and secured it 3 different ways they stopped. I was worried it was going to take the dry wall off, but I got it down undamaged.

This is the dining room. I got the painting from Paris framed and this is our new formal dining table. I feel so grown up...not that I've eaten on it. I'll probably have a table cloth a bib when I do though. It's so pretty I don't want to mess it up.

This is the living room, business center and kitchen. We had ALL the cabinets painted. The painter said the cheap material the cabinets were made of wouldn't hold a stain so we had to paint. We've had some problems with the ADD painter so he's coming back to redo them, but if you don't look to close they look OK.

I didn't get a before pic straight on of the kitchen, but here it is after. Isn't it purdy?

Here are the built-ins. We had them painted the same color as the cabinets. We decided to hang the TV because it would have been to far away in either of the built-ins. I think we need a bigger one though. It looks so small in the picture. I need some nick-knack crap to put on the shelves. I tried, but I suck at buying that kind of stuff. I've gone to 7 stores but I just end up wandering through the store thinking 'people really buy this crap?' If any one has any favorite places let me know.

I suck at taking pictures and it really shows here. I couldn't get the lighting right. This is the living room with our new couches and end tables. You can't tell, which is probably good, but they are so comfortable that I already have my spot and have a left a butt print. You know it's been broken in after you spill something, check, and there's cheek indention's, CHECK!

This is the hallway. I know everyone wanted to see the hallway. I just want props for painting the entire house. That, and this was one of the first things painted. I swear the painter is either high or has an attention span of a 2 year old. Who paints a hallway first and the master bathroom last? Yes, I talked to him. He did the same thing I did to my parents when I was a kid. Apologized, said he'd fix it and then did whatever the hell he wanted. OK, I might still do that.

Besides the kitchen I think the master bathroom is the biggest transformation. Not that you can see it because I didn't take a before picture, but imagine a booger green wall with a big plain mirror. I think we did a good job fixing it up. Although, after booger green you can't get much worse. Did you notice too that none of the other walls were painted. Out of the whole house one wall in the master bathroom was painted and they chose booger green...I guess I should be grateful they only painted one wall. Can you imagine what else they would have done??

That's it. I hope it was worth the wait. I still have tons to do. Pictures can be a little deceiving that way. All I did was move the mess to the floor and WA LA, it's clean.

Thanks to Laurie for helping me decorate and hang everything, and if it's crooked I'm sure it's my fault. A big smooch to Billy for moving our stuff 14 times and then living in chaos for 3 weeks. It's starting to come together and we're excited for the next chapter here in Fort Worth.

Buyers Remorse

One of the things that I still haven't told you (because I love to keep my secrets) is that Billy made me a consult appointment to the orthodontist during my birthday week!

On his quest to free me from childhood scars and take care of me he decided it was about time to make my pearly whites align. That or he's just sick of me complaining about my teeth.

So yesterday I got my braces on. At first, it was exciting and new and then...



3 hours later I was thinking I'd rather keep my childhood scars and twisted teeth. Oooodelalie! These things hurt.

As I lay in bed, I was thinking about all the things I could have purchased for $4,000 big ones. Or eaten - pain free. Talk about buyers remorse.

My Sister's Killer...errr Keeper

                                 ********SPOILER ALERT*********

I haven't had a good cry for a few months and I figured my eyes were due for a good watering so I went to see My Sister's Keeper. The only good thing I can say is that my eyes did get watered, but my wrists almost got slit as well.

With the exception of Abigail Breslin and Joan Cusack, it was the most depressing movie I've ever seen. The problem was it had no moral to the story. The end monologue says 'I wish I could say why my sister lived or why she died, but I can't. I wish I could say something good came out of it, but I can't. We all just have to move on.' WHAT? It's a good thing the movie theater only has plastic knives or they would have had to clean up more than just spilled coke. 

The comment about not knowing if there's a life after death was made several times, which just made it shallow and depressing. Why do I want to watch a movie about a girl who spends her life with one foot in the grave to have her die and her family say...I don't know what that was about, but it sucks to be her.

At least with Will Smith's Seven Pounds there was a greater good happening. In this movie the sister just dies and life goes on but not really any better. The family actually seem to grow apart. I'm not sure what the message or moral was or even if they cared to have one at all. I've heard the book is amazing, but the movie was a pointless tear jerk-er.

If any one has read the book, please tell me what was with the brother roaming seedy hollywood streets in the middle of the night? Was he prostituting himself? Is that where they came up with the $700? At the end I thought Alec Baldwin was going to give the money back, but he didn't. He just came to say he won. Which actually was right in line with the rest of the movie with the controlling oblivious mother, the dying sister apologizing and the children scheming against their parents to the point of getting a lawyer, who I think you were supposed to be rooting for.

I hope whoever wrote that screenplay is on some serious controlled substances because if you really believe there is no purpose in life and death and there is no life after death then I don't know how you get out of be in the morning. I said a prayer for these people because they need all the prayers they can get.

Too Much Culture Can Be A Bad Thing

I have had THE best 2 weeks! Billy and I hadn't spent more than 3 consecutive days together since December until 2 weeks ago. Crazy right? Well we finally made time for ourselves and have spent everyday of the past 2 weeks together. It's been wonderful. My birthday was on the 3rd and my fabulous husband went above and beyond this year. I'll post about that later though because I want to post about my week in Paris first. That's right. The following week Billy and I jetted off to Paris. It was my first time in Europe and I was really looking forward to it. 

I have to say though it didn't live up to my expectations. We had fun and we're glad we went, but we won't be going back. It was smelly (people and places), the french aren't the friendliest, all the art is of naked men and women and it's crazy expensive. The currency exchange is our 59 cents to their 1 euro...almost half! Stuff over there is already on the pricey side and then you have to almost double it. Every time we ate or went on a tour we usually felt like it wasn't worth the money, which put a damper on things.  

We did do and see some fun stuff though. Here is Billy doing his best angry warrior pose inside the Arc de Triomphe.

Here he is outside looking good in his Paris sweater that we bought because the airline lost our luggage for a day.

We wanted to get our picture taken together so we looked around and saw this chubby couple and figured they were Americans, which they were, but they took the worst picture ever. Stupid Fat Americans.

We went to the Louvre and made sure we didn't ask any fat Americans to take our picture.

I thought the Louvre was cool. It's wicked huge, at a mile and a half long and 3 stories tall. Billy and I decided that we're not educated enough to appreciate the art. For example, explain this one to me. I just don't getit ;)

We stopped by the Orsay museum and found more of the same. This is called the Roman Orgy. Everybody was getting their picture taken in front of it...so I figured when in Rome.

At this point I was getting a little tired of seeing teetees, tatas and little marble uncircumcised peter's. I mean really. Can they not paint clothes?? I thought Paris was the fashion capital of the world but I wasn't seeing any clothes at all! And what's with all the lusty nakedness with little naked stone kids watching? Have they no shame?

We went to the Palace of Versailles and I finally asked the tour guide about the naked kids and he said most of them were actually angles, as if that made it better, and then followed it up with "And nude is better." I thought about saying there's a reason people call IT 'bumping uglies', but figured I'd have to explain it and I didn't want to embarrass Billy like that.

We got lost trying to find the Eiffel Tower. It can happen, I assure you. We finally found it after walking in circles for a while.

But when we got close the line just to get a ticket was RIDICULOUS! So Billy made an executive decision.

I will give the French props on their pastries. We went into this restaurant and ordered a coke, because even their water tastes dirty, and the waiter asked if we wanted medium or large... 

We should have gone with medium. We also got a nutella crepe with whip creme and raspberries. Rocked my world. Literally, it was so much sugar I went from skipping on the high to stumbling as I went into the sugar coma. We had some good pizza and sandwiches and sorbet and maybe more crepe's. We didn't have good luck with some pasta with what I think were clams in it or salmon that was boiled :(

The whole time we were there Billy and I kept talking about how angry the French seemed. We didn't get spit on or anything, but they are like stone faced. You make eye contact on the street or metro and they don't even acknowledge you. I don't know how they physically do it. It's seriously impressive. We asked another tour guide about it and he said that you aren't supposed to talk to people on the street unless you're hitting on them. And then they are only supposed to respond if they're interested. It's a good thing Billy and I are so undesirable because we were totally putting ourselves out there all week smiling and saying hi. It's a miracle we didn't end up in an embarrassing situation with all the propositions we made. After we learned that we figured we better practice our 'french faces'.  

Billy's is better because he is able to look uninterested and angry at the same time. Very authentic.

Our favorite part of the whole trip was going behind this cathedral where all these artists were and finding this painting that we bought. We love it...because everyone has clothes one.

I take it back. The best part of the whole trip was on the metro. The metro is smelly and crazy and the doors slam shut and don't come open if you get caught in them. It was our last day and we were on our way back to the airport when at a station this french kid comes running towards the train, but the buzzer starts and when that happens you better get out of the way. Well the idiot stops right in the door way and they close...hard. So he's trying to keep them open, not very successfully and then we see his girlfriend running up too. So he tries to move aside so she can squeeze through but he moves too much and the doors SLAM right on her face and chest and she's standing there half in half out squirming with what has to be the best pain face I've ever seen. No one and I mean NO ONE on the train moves to help. Billy and I are both expecting the train to start moving with her flailing about but the boyfriend is finally able to pull the doors open and get her the rest of the way on. Billy and I are trying to not to laugh out loud, but everyone else is stone cold except for this little Indian dude. He was straight faced but when I looked up he cracked a little smile before he looked down and resumed his scowl. It was hil-freaking-larious!!!

That was pretty much our trip. We saw a few other things, but I don't want to offend any more people than I may have already. It was fun to see everything and experience some culture, but we're happy to be back home.