i'm a lazy blogger so this post is just pictures

yes, we made a blanket fort for the sole purpose of eating chocolate cake and listening to jim gaffigan standup.

be jealous.

p.s. kitchen roselli in east bend. do it.

the worst decision i ever made

Last night Lacey, Jaws, and I decided to go to Chili’s.  I’m not sure why we picked Chili’s…maybe it’s because the restaurant served us well during the high school years, maybe we really thought getting margaritas, appetizers, entrees, and a dessert for $35 dollars was a great deal, I don’t know. We just did.

The second mistake of the night was ordering cheese fries as an appetizer and BACON CHEDDAR quesadillas for my entrée. I didn’t  stop to think that the two were basically the same ingredients in different shapes. I also didn’t think that the quantity of cheese involved, mixed with the sugar and tequila in the blackberry margarita would tear my poor stomach to pieces.

But I soon realized.  Ohhhhhh, I realized.  I knew that something really bad was going down in my stomachular region.  That cheese was ripping down the lining of my stomach like it was a bad wallpaper.  I even went to the bathroom and considered forcing myself to throw up.

Listen.  Until you’ve stood for 10 minutes in the dirty bathroom of a chain restaurant where you just inhaled 6,000 calories of cheddar and bacon and considered sticking your finger down your own throat to end your agony, you have not reached rock bottom. 

In the end, Jaws took me home and walked around the neighborhood with me until that glob of death moved out of my stomach and into my small intestine.

Ladies: if you find a man who will shuffle around your neighborhood with you because you ate your way into a cheese-induced bout of heartburn, hold on to him.  He’s a keeper.

In the end, the three of us vowed never to eat at Chili’s again.  It’s nothing against the restaurant; I just think we’ve outgrown the days of eating solid cheese and animal fat for dinner and are moving on to better days of fresh vegetables and well-cooked steaks.

i hate running

not really, but i'm feeling quite dramatic right now.

today i tried out my 4 mile run that jaws & i neglected during our vaca last weekend. it started out fantastically. the route was (relatively) flat, i had been hydrating all day, it was the perfect amount of time between meals that i felt energized but not full...it seemed that the stars had aligned.

then i hit some major hills, nearly got run over by a car, and then got lost!

by the time i realized that i had missed my turn, i was waaaay out of the way and ended up adding an extra 2 mile loop to the run.  needless to say that i walked it.

so, i'm feeling discouraged. i thought i was gonna have a great 4 mile run to brag about, but instead i got sore legs and major thirstyness.

if this is how dramatic i feel after 4 miles (or 6), i'm gonna be a MAJOR diva after 13.1

sigh.

update: to the person who got to my blog by googling the phrase "do real runners laugh at 13.1 stickers?":
i would say no, no they don't.

bird war!

i don't know if i've mentioned the evil demon bird that lives outside my apartment before, but alas, there is one.  this spawn of satan poops on my car

every.

         single.

                     day.

i've started parking in the street to avoid him. yes, i have been exiled from the driveway that i pay to park on by a bird.  this bird makes me rue the day that i became a wildlife biologist.

anyway, my mom threw conservation to the wind and went out and shook this out of our tree.

no birds were harmed in the making of this photo

so at last i thought it would be safe to park in my spot again.  in my jubilation, i even washed my car until it was squeaky clean.  then today, i saw this:

dun.

      dun.

             dun.

it's on, bird.

oh yeah, it's on.

dirty hair

friends:
i am in the process of writing a deep post with musings about hospitalization and the meaning of prayer, but while i'm formulating those deep thoughts, i wanted to share with you this little convo that lacey & i had yesterday:

me: i'm trying this new thing where i only wash my hair every other day.

lms: ew. why?

me: ...well it saves me a lot of time...you know...i'm not spending 30 minutes drying and straightening...it saved me so much time on saturday!

lms: you're unemployed. what are you doing with your time that couldn't be better spent cleaning your hair?

touche, lacey. touche.


whatever. i'm sticking to it.

living the life (girls night edition)

Remember my awesome cousin Sumer ?  Thursday, LMS and I went to Charlotte for a girls night with her friends. First of all, let me say that 'cabo fish taco' is the most delicious restaurant in all the land (or the Charlotte metro area).  We ended up piling into the mini-van (mom's night out rides in style) and cruising through the city.  at one point, we realized that you CAN'T close mini-van doors while in drive, but we were already in the middle of the street, so we drove around downtown with the Oddessy doors open, emergency alarm beeping, and kids music blaring.

By the time we got there, I had to pee in a MAJOR way and so did LMS, but we found that 'cabo taco' didn't feel that STALLS were necessary in their restroom facilities. I had to go so bad that I almost considered it, but LMS was a dear and let me go ahead.

also, i witnessed someone using a breast pump for the first time ever.  you learn lots of things when most of your friends are older than you. 

if you're ever in charlotte, go to 'cabo fish taco' and get the bbq mahi tacos. you won't regret it.

living the life

here are 3 ridiculous things that happened to me today:

uno.   i went to food lion to get boxes for moving and they gave me banana boxes, which are awesome because they're sturdy and have handles that are helpful for weaklings; however, 2 hours into packing my winter clothes, i realized that the whole room smelled like a dirty famer's market at the end of the afternoon. (ew).  6 hours later, the smell has reached the kitchen and front door.

dos.  not showering until 5pm.  unemployment is pretty awesome. i can be productive and not have to look presentable.

tres.   i stopped by walmart for a few staples on my way to run.  whilst navigating towards the conditioner aisle to grab the ONE THING i needed, i found candy on sale for 98 cents, so naturally i bought some...and ate it...on the way to the greenway to run. 2 miles later, i was definitely regretting the cheap milkduds.


ridiculous.

tiny green peas

Let me share a little tale with you that will highlight how completely I suck at doing most normal things.  I have recently procured an injury to my left knee whilst running.

wow! 

you must say

you must be some kind of super hardcore lance armstrong type athlete. please share with me your tips for being so fit.

but before you get carried away with thinking that i am all athletic and whatnot, let me tell you that i injured my knee while running  A MILE AND HALF.

yes, a mile and a half.

i've been all ego-inflated because i ran 3 times last week and starting having visions of running 10K's and things until I woke up Wednesday morning with an annoying feeling in my knee-al region.  every time i straighten my leg, my knee feels like it needs to pop; however, no amount of twisting or hopping (painfully, i might add!) produces the desired pop.

then while complaining about my plight to jaws (the boyfriend, who used to run half-marathons and stuff, which is my way of saying that he KNOWS about these things), he informed me that i probably had an inflamed tendon (or ligament? can't remember.) and that by NO MEANS should i try to pop my knee (whoops) and that I should be icing and stretching my leg. and that i should stop choosing my running shoes based on which ones are on sale.

so me and this dumb bag of peas have been getting well acquainted (did you know there is such a thing as 'grade a fancy peas'? and you can buy them at the food lion?)

the knee is feeling a little bit better, and soon i will go select REAL running shoes. and then maybe i can run more than 1.5 miles without injury.

with love, from internet

my new favorite way to pack: drawing outfit ideas before hitting the closet. i'm hoping this will cut down on the agonizing "what am i going to weaaaaaaar?" portion of packing for next weekend's beach trip.

it took the combined power of lacey & jaclyn +5 hours to pack for NYC... and that was only my suitcase.

oh and don't worry, i erased the fugly floral tanktop +black skinny jeans combo up in the top left.

 

 @WillFerrell

I changed all my passwords to 'incorrect'. So my computer just tells me when I forget.

how awesome is this room? i bookmarked it so hopefully i can remember when i'm more mature
(read: when i'm done buying pink duvets and/or married)

here

 

my friend samantha is famous! read about how she met Jesus here:

life was not what I thought it should be.

here

way to ruin it, kid. :)

Happy Weekend, friends.

my brain

hello dear friends, loyal readers, and you who were bored on facebook and saw this link,

today on the way back from the capitol of our state where that handsome boy who lets me call him my boyfriend lives, i was trying to think of something profound to write about on the blog.  nothing really came to mind,  mostly because it's hard to think deep thoughts while listening to country songs.

they usually re-route any philosophical ponderings to things like beer and trucks and kissing.

i thought, rather than write a short essay about ONE thing, i would write a sentence or two about SEVERAL things i've been thinking about this week. here goes:

gluten free diets actually cause weight GAIN   oh no, hipsters!  according to this article, less than 1% of americans have celiac's disease but 20-25% of consumers will buy gluten-free products.  think how much more money you'll have for apple products when you aren't paying extra for gluten free bread.

matt chandler on dating: not exactly what you read in "I Kissed Dating Good-bye", yet still so biblical.

NC State gets farther than Duke in the NCAA tournament? That's the craziest fluke that i've ever heard, but also super gratifying.  i am very determinedly not-geting-my-hopes-up for anything more.

west elm

i want this bed! how cool and modern and practical is it???? p.s. if you're bored, pick me a duvet from this company that's under 50 dolla and would match grayish purple sheets and you'll earn my undying love.


these are the things i think about, people.

no makeup

unedited except adding border and adjusting brightness a little

so in the random news of j's life, I went without wearing makeup today.  I'm not a huge makeup wearer but don't exactly have flawless skin either, so I usually slap on a little tinted moisturizer and mascara before I leave the house. if I'm feeling fancy/seeing the boyfriend, I'll add a little eyeliner to the mix.  So today I woke up, showered, put on lotion with SPF (80 degrees what what!!) and thought:

"you know what? I don't have time to put all this junk on my face today. I'm a brave woman; I'll just go without it. I am beautiful no matter what they say." 

jk about that last part. that was a Christina Aguilera song.

 I felt a little bit like Robert Pattinson in "How to Be"

 "You're not a nobody. You're a somebody!"

and so I did it, and it was scary and liberating at the same time. sometimes I would catch my reflection and think, 

"who is that?!?"

and I don't really have any deep thoughts/reflections about this except that I wish my own face didn't surprise me and I thought you should know about my day.

the end.

fun friday

Happy Friday, friends!
Here's some stuff to keep you entertained today.

my kids are SO having this:

tree house bed

awesomely true and hilarious (and a little inapro-pro):

20 new year's resolutions for twenty-somethings

wisdom:

bits of wisdom

i can't believe this is the first time i've mentioned tebow on my blog. how on earth am i a christian???:

here

lace & i are off to NYC next week and i'll be sans internet but expect pictures/stories when we return!
i'm so looking forward to wearing all the stuff that i love that's way too hipster for the 'burbs. pink lip gloss, furry hats, and liquid eyeliner, here we come!

i whip my hair...

If you're a girl and are involved in the blogosphere on any level, you can probably relate to this post.

If you have a Y chromosome, you are not going to get this at all. Sorry. Maybe I'll write a post about how annoying the Duke/NCSU game was last week to get my male readership back up.

haha. yeah right.

Anyway, I have a serious case of hair envy. Here are just a few of the girls I follow:

Sydney @ the daybook

jane @ see jane

kinsey @ sincerely, kinsey

  And here is me:

Do you see the problem?

I used to look like this:

Although my hair certainly wasn't fabulous by any standard, it had the potential for glamor. Plus, I'm not in college anymore, so I don't consider yoga pants and a bun "dressing up". I could actually do something attractive with Rapunzel hair this time around.

Yesterday I made Lacey look me in the eye and swear on Bruce and Kris Jenner's marriage (serious stuff) that she wouldn't let me cut my hair again, but I also need you, readers, to keep me accountable. If I pull any shenanegins and start posting pictures of Ginnifer Goodwin or Gweneth Paltrow during her bob stage, DON'T LET ME DO IT!

I'm counting on you.

hallmark holiday

I'm not a huge fan of Valentine's Day. I'm never home enough to enjoy overpriced flowers, I get awkward about the weird 'do we get each other gifts?' protocol, and I dislike not being able to go to a restaurant any time within this two week period because they're crowded with couples.

However, I AM lucky enough to have a sweetheart this year, and I think he's pretty awesome, so I won't be too bitter and WILL post one of my favorite mushy songs in honor of the day.

I love LOVE this song. especially the line:

"she knows which birds are singing

and the names of the trees where

they're performing in the morning"

I like to think that the AB secretly wrote it about me. 

haha. so, I hope you all have a great valentines. 

at the very least, i hope that you get to watch 'mean girls' 

(the best movie ever) and eat chocolate until you're sick.

hotel song

I realized that I'm a super bi-polar eater. Half the time, I'm uber pretentious and complain about pesticides in our produce and stuff like that, and the other half I'm eating a box of Teddy Grahams in one sitting.

I had this revelation last weekend while I was out of town and documenting the places we ate on my camera phone.

Friday night: Nana's Soul Food Kitchen

 

Saturday night: Trader Joe's

Here is me drinking out of a styrafoam (gasp!) cup and marvelling at our hotel room, which had flat screen tv's and Aveda products in the bathroom. It was pretty fly, let me tell you.

Now I'm back in the dash, dog sitting two cute little puppies that find it hilarious to eat my bagel when I set it on the couch and walk out of the room (clearly I'm not ready for pets or motherhood).  It's hard to stay mad though, when we're all snuggled up in the living room watching Parks&Rec on netflix. It's probably the best case scenario for a rainy-sick day. 

Is it Friday yet?

ramblings

"I wonder what they teach in that building?"

"Maybe it was named after Harold T. Science... a famous poet."

i wanted to think of a funny anecdote from my day and tell you about it in really exaggerated terms that would make my life seem amusing and enjoyable, but i'm lazy and also not feeling amusing and enjoyable.

additionally, i realize that i've been a terrible blogger lately. i haven't written anything that could be even remotely considered entertaining, or really posted anything at all except for stupid pictures i've found on pintrest. my only excuse is that i've been (somewhat?) busy, except that most of the bloggers i read the most are moms, so i have no excuse at all. 

also! i want photo editing software that can do more than just crop pictures and change the contrast. any suggestions? i'm like a pre-schooler when it comes to working anything technological, so keep that in mind.

lastly, when is it going to be summmmmmmmertime? look at how gray and gross that picture is. i'm ready for sunshine, pool time, and flip flops.