hubby had to leave town yesterday to take all the guest room furniture up to his parents’ house. tonight, sunny and I got together for a nice little girls night out dinner. it was great to get out and just talk and hang out for a while. we talked about her busy business and her volunteer work at a local animal rescue. I told her about my exciting call yesterday where it sounds like I am going to get the opportunity to transition out of my current position, back into a tech writing position that I’ve been chasing for years. we sat at the restaurant and talked for over two hours about all kinds of nonsense. sometimes it’s nice to just get out and catch up with a good friend

while we had our big ice storm last week, Alabama got a sweet snow storm… something like four inches. I was super jealous and told the family that they needed to hold onto it for a week until we get there. well, they didn’t hold the big snow for me but they did arrange for me to have some falling snow anyhow. it was all kinds of exciting, even if it was just a dusting and quickly gone the next morning.

as an early birthday gift, mother nature decided to give me a highly respectable ice storm.  not just a little sleet but full-on frozen Floridian beach.  craziness.  the down side of that is that our trip to Orlando might be delayed since there are still a ton of bridges and roads closed, including a very large portion of I-10.  again: crazy.  but the ice sure is pretty and it’s fun to see the beach frozen over.

the railings and walkways of our building were sheets of ice

the grass and street out in front of the building were frozen solid

huge two month whirlwind.  ironman, Jamaica, thanksgiving in Alabama, cruise, Christmas in Orlando…  it was exhausting.  we had two great vacations that were wonderfully relaxing but I definitely don’t want to do that again.  holiday time vacations add to holiday stress.  my Christmas shopping didn’t get finished until the last minute (unless you count shopping for our local friends which didn’t happen until this weekend) and I never got to make any Christmas cookies.  not that i’m complaining… like I said, fabulous vacations and really nice holiday visits with family.  sadly, my nephew decided his gift to me was the flu so now i’m lying in bed, freezing to death, and feeling like all of santa’s reindeers just trampled over my body.  here’s hoping i’m feeling better by Tuesday so that I can ring in the new year bowling with our friends.

for those curious about my lips… i hate them.  quitting chapstick (carmex) was a terrible decision.  it is completely not worthwhile.  it’s been almost three months and my lips continue to get sloughy.  they are never soft and smooth.  at least when i was slathering them with carmex eighty times a day, they were always kissable.  now they just annoy the tar out of me.  i’m probably going to get some of the burt’s bees crap or something that they consider to be “good” for your lips and start using it.  being a non-user is just not worth it.

hubby just noticed today that I had quit carmex.  30 days later.  *shaking head*  I guess it was the skinless, bloody stumps where my lips used to be that gave it away.

it’s been twenty-seven days since my last chapstick application.  it all started when I was a kid and my mom would slather the waxy, cherry-flavored goodness all over me every time I was within her reach.  she then started buying me my own tubes to carry with me.  before I was out of elementary school, I found myself unable to go anywhere without chapstick in my pocket.  it wasn’t until high school that I really started experimenting, leaving the childish chapstick behind and using various types of soft lips and blistex instead.  when I started college, I was introduced to the hard stuff.  that’s right… carmex!  after I discovered that mentholated tube of lip-crack, there was no going back.  nothing else could compare.

in adulthood, I have often been teased and ridiculed for my addiction.  I ran out once while traveling a few years ago and my husband challenged me to take the opportunity to quit.  I went twenty-seven grueling hours without carmex before hubby made the mistake of searching for chapstick addiction on the interwebs and reading me the horror stories of withdrawal.  I immediately decided that my habit wasn’t hurting anyone and giving it up was NOT worthwhile.  I didn’t want to go through the pain and humiliation of having my lips fall off.

so… nearly four weeks ago, I found myself in that same predicament of running out while traveling.  I went to the store and bought a three-pack of carmex… and never opened the package.  I don’t know why.  there was no real thought process or reasoning behind it… I just decided to quit.  it didn’t even seem that big a deal.  the first week was practically a non-event; I just didn’t think about my lips.  the second week, I had a small split in my lower lip that bugged me for a couple days and made me more aware of my lips but I never felt the need to bust out the carmex.  the third week has been… hell.  my lips are suddenly so dry that they are all I can think about.  I can’t smile without licking my lips first because they are so dry and tight.  I have had countless occasions this week where I have nearly fallen off the wagon.  I want carmex. I NEED carmex.   my lips hurt;  they are making me extremely self-conscious.  today, they are cracking and peeling and I am back to feeling that this is not a worthwhile endeavor.  but… I will stick with it because I am no quitter and I have already sacrificed nearly four weeks.  here’s hoping that week four is the light at the end of this tunnel.

a year after returning from Europe, we received a traffic ticket in the mail from Italy.  lovely souvenir.  hopefully, that was the final payment on our fabulous Holy Land vacation.  and just a friendly PSA:  don’t let your gps take you to the leaning tower of pisa.  if you get anywhere near it in your car, they will hunt you down and make you pay 🙂

open-window weather is finally starting to show it’s lovely face around here.  Monday, i was able to open the windows from mid-morning until mid-afternoon.  Monday night and last night, i was able to sleep with the windows open.  this morning, it’s downright cool in here 😀  i have to close up the windows and curtains when the sun starts blistering the living room in the afternoon but i just know that fall is sneaking in.  i have the urge to roast some marshmallows around a nice fire pit!

chapstick free.  just because.  it really hasn’t even been that bad until i smiled too big and cracked my dry lower lip last night and so today i have been all too aware of my un-balmed lips.

since we’ve been getting more involved with the church, I’ve been wanting to try joining a small group.  I’ve never done bible study before so i was pretty nervous but i felt like i needed to do it.  i really wanted to do something that hubby and i could do together but his training just doesn’t leave him any time for it (which is a shame because there was a really fun looking group that was going to study the bible through a les mis character study… how cool is that?!!!).  since i was going to have to go it alone, i decided to try the online group.  i kind of thought that it was going to be an asynchronous message board kind of thing where we would all just post our thoughts on the book we’re reading.  turns out it’s actually going to be a weekly video conference.  aacckkk!!!  why didn’t i just wait until the next course when my hubby could join me?  i’m so nervous about this endeavor now.

The other day, my sister shared a kitchen tip with me that has revolutionized my world!  I was complaining about the time and effort that goes into shredding meats… I do a lot of chicken dishes where I cook the chicken and then use a couple forks to shred it up and it’s an odious task.  So anyhow, my sissy mentioned that my kitchenaid’s dough hook would perform that job for me.  The heck you say!  Well last night I put it to the test.  Oh.  My.  Goodness.  Pure flippin’ genius!!!  What would normally take me 15 minutes was done in a whopping 90 seconds with no effort, no hassle, and no mess.  I never would have even thought of using my kitchenaid this way.  Bring on the BBQ pulled pork… I could shred up that piggy in no time flat!  Brilliant!!!

I didn’t make it very far with the whole “I’m gonna be a blogger again” thing, eh?  really, there hasn’t been much of anything interesting going on around here.  hubby has been training for his first IronMan and I’ve been the supportive wife I promised to be.  I have gotten back into a bit of a workout routine.  In that my buddy and I have been doing our aqua-jogging three times a week for over a month now and I’ve been dragging myself to the gym fairly regularly again.  i’m trying to work up to three days a week of weights again but I have been less than successful at that.  I have, however, been supplementing pool and weights with bike and treadmill at the gym also.  I was very proud of myself Monday for dragging myself to the gym at lunch (the whole reason I haven’t been able to workup to 3x weights is because I’m too tired on MWF after waking up at 05:30 for the pool).  Ten minutes into my workout, I was a moron and smashed my hand in some weights.  I think that did it for me for the week.  *sigh* Such is life.  It could have been worse… nothing’s broken as it was, thankfully, my lowest weight machine.  It sure does smart though.

so another change in the last year and a half is my hair. first, i cut off all the length so that my curls would stand out. next, i decided to go purple. i started in 2011 by doing purple streaks throughout my hair and loved it. in 2012, i decided to go all the way with it.

blond is so not my color!	but i could totally pull off a helena bonham carter look

i love my purple hair! i get so many compliments on it and it just makes me feel good about me. there’s a lot to be said for that 🙂