I want to talk about the booze.

There's a certain restaurant in town I like to describe as fancy pants.

The decor is nice. Everyone in town talks about how good it is.

My confession? The first time I ate there, I didn't like it. To be fair, I ate there a few days after I ate what I consider the best food I've ever had (out of state).

I was expecting really, really good food when I went to this restaurant in my hometown the first time around. The bar was set pretty high. I left with a meh feeling.

But hey, I'm willing to forgive, forget about the past and give it another chance.

Last night we ordered pasta, fancy pants pizza and french fries. Looking back, maybe that wasn't the best or healthiest decision, but I'm happy to report that the food is good.

Not spectacular, the best food I've ever had good, but it was pretty good (The next time I go there I need to order like I'm not a hungover college student, though).

But I don't want to talk about the food. I want to talk about the booze.

The margarita I had last night (with blueberry!) was very, very good. It had raspberries on top, which is a plus for me. The more girly my drinks look, the more I like them.

You guys, that margarita was delicious. I'm usually a frozen margarita kind of a girl, but this one on the rocks knocked my socks off.

So what if I squirted lime three feet away from me and flung my bread clear across the table. Who cares, I was too busy enjoying my drink.

I might have also told a friend that I was going to buy the lottery.

The margarita was that good.

I woke up insanely happy this morning. Dammit! That was a good drink.

I'd go back to said restaurant in the future. There's one more chicken dish I want to try. Or I could try something new...which makes me and probably everyone who knows me well laugh.

Or maybe I'll just return for the booze.

Text of the day.

"I don't think dead people respond to emails. Especially fictional dead people."

:)

Do hard things.

I was trying to clean house a little bit ago, and I came across my alumni magazine.

I couldn't remember if I read the current issue or not. I thought I had, and I thought about tossing it in the recycling pile.

Once I opened it, I read a headline that caught my eye.

It said: "Do hard things. Do. Hard. Things."

The headline belongs to the text of the commencement speech that one of my alma mater's professors made at graduation this year.

It's pretty brilliant, and it's something that someone who graduated six years ago needed to hear.

Among the good nuggets of information in it:

"There's a Chinese proverb that says, the best time to plant a tree is 25 years ago. If you'd done that, you'd be sitting in its shade now. But since you didn't, the second best time to plant a tree is right now."

"It's been said a number of places, that success usually doesn't come from doing your day job, but from doing your homework. You graduates think you're done with homework. But I hope you're not."

"The more you do it, the more capable you become."

"You do hard things to prove to yourself how capable you are. Use that capability, find the thing that you want to get better at by doing more of it. Cultivate something you're passionate about, that you care about doing. It can open doors you haven't imagined yet."

"You do hard things to prove to other that you're capable, and credible."

"When you do hard things, you learn new things you never knew before. You prove to yourself that you're capable of doing something you thought was beyond you. And  you prove to other what you can do. They will believe in you and get behind you."

"The worthwhile things in life aren't always easy. And the easy things in life aren't always worthwhile. The world is begging for people who can do hard things. So go out there and prove what you can do."

Lost Quotes

Good morning!

I'm still watching Lost with friends. We're on the fourth season, and everything that I thought I knew is/was suddenly wrong.

I was way off base last night guessing what would happen. I wasn't even remotely correct. Sigh, I thought I was getting good at this.

I also realized last night that I managed to miss a major part of the plot. I'm not sure how, because everyone else in the room knew. Oh well, I guess I can't be perfect all of the time (ha, ha).

Here are some more quotes:

"Once you let your grief become anger it will never go away."

"Don't tell me this is not my war."

"Destiny is a fickle bitch."

"Those things had to happen to me. It was destiny."

Baby Crafts

The babies and I had fun on Friday night creating their Father's Day presents for their Daddy and Grandpa.

It started with a plan that my newly-married friend thought up: Do something that involves paint and baby feet for Father's Day.

Sounds fun, let's do it!

The fun technically started on Thursday night, when I bought all the supplies and did a test run to see how messy it would be.

I tested out everything outside. The first step to any baby craft project, of course, is to make sure the Pug approves.

Dat lip.

Pug on a picnic table.

Penny didn't have a problem with it, and I discovered that it wasn't too messy and the paint dried pretty fast.

The original plan I had involved baby handprints, too, but that plan quickly changed.

Baby hand prints don't work out so well when the babies for four months old and have their hands in a fist all the time. I turned to Plan B and settled on baby footprints instead.

First, I painted their little feet with black tempera paint (washable paint, people, no babies were harmed in making of this). Then, not very gracefully, I leaned them over onto the kitchen table, and tried to press their feet onto scrapbook paper.

The first one didn't turn out so hot, but there's only so much you can do when babies are that little. I did two sets of footprints for each baby, then called it good.

Baby feet!

They might have gotten paint all over their legs and shirts, too, but oh well.

The final product turned out really well, I think.

I thought the babies would be excited about it - I thought there'd be some kind of reaction. They didn't really care what I was doing to them, and they both farted on me a few times during this project.

Oh, babies.

Side story: When you go to a certain craft store the day before Father's Day and hope and wish that the frames you want will be half off, they most certainly will not be half off.

I justified using a 40 percent coupon on one of them, but I wasn't going to pay full price for the other one. Instead, I browsed the clearance section and found a the perfect sized frame for $5.

Go me, I just saved $20! Or so I thought.

It turns out that when you add in a matt board, a back, glass, and probably some other stuff, that $5 frame turns into a really expensive project

It would have been cheaper to buy the frame already made.

While I worked in that craft store for a few years in high school and college, I never worked in the framing department.

Oops.

Anyway, that was my stupid tax for the week.

I think the baby feet project turned out pretty cool. My thing lately is giving gifts that money can't buy. Even though there was a price tag attached to this, you can't buy baby paint footprints anywhere.

And if you want to, well, you have problems.

My life!

I had the bright idea to take vacation time last week and not go on a vacation.

True story: I've never actually gone on a vacation while taking vacation time off of work. Ah, bummer.

Anyway, it turns out that my vacation was pretty terrible. I didn't sleep in, I didn't read as much as I should have, and I really didn't do anything for myself.

Instead, I worried about multiple extra projects I have going on. Why did I volunteer to do all of these things at the same time? I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure I shouldn't have. I worked two hours using a new program and didn't press the save button.

Sigh. That's the kind of week it was.

I read maybe 10 pages of the book I'm reading, and that's it. I don't even think I went to Hobby Lobby once.

The horror!

The only positive thing that happened is that I improved my quesadilla recipe. Now, in addition to chicken, mozzarella, feta, and spinach, I add the juice of half a lime.

Delicious!

I don't regret taking that vacation now.

Yummy.

Podcast quotes

I listen to the Stuff Mom Never Told You podcast on a regular basis.

There was an episode this week called 'The Amateur Wedding Guest.' Writer Jen Doll was a guest on the podcast, and said some pretty cool things about weddings.

I think of it as prom for adults. It’s one of the few times in adult life where we get to repeat these really orchestrated, formalized affairs. We dress up, photos are taken, it’s really important. It happens less regularly than a birthday. And they’re always different. I think when we’re going to these things where love and romance and togetherness and a spirit of bonding, not just with the couple, but with the entire group of people there, we can’t help but feel a heightened emotional state at the same time.
 It’s all very dramatic. It’s like the Oscars, or a movie. We feel vulnerable, because when we see people doing this thing, we think about where we are in life, too. And maybe we don’t measure up. It’s very hard to ever feel like you’ve done it, you’ve got there, you’re great now, there’s nothing more in life you want.
 People getting married feel the same way. Getting married doesn’t suddenly mean you’re there, everything you’ve ever wanted has been achieved. You keep wanting things, you keep achieving. You’re vulnerable as humans because you have desires and emotions and you’re living life, and life is complicated.

This is definitely true. Looking around the room that night, I was pretty proud of what all of us achieved. We finished college, we have jobs, we've moved cities multiple times, we've gone through some pretty tough stuff.

And yet, at the end of the night, we're all still together and we're still celebrating each other's achievements.

That's pretty cool, if you ask me.

This too shall pass.

I spent some time last week freelancing.

Somebody I was interviewing said the following quote that I really like: "No matter how bad it gets, or how bad you think it is, one of my favorite quotes is, 'This too shall pass.' And it does."

Weird and awkward.

I would not describe myself as a girly person.

I like glitter, I like shopping, I love purses, make up, and other girly things, but I’m just not that girly.

Wedding planning and everything involved in the process is very girly.

It started a few months ago when we were trying on dresses. There aren’t mirrors in those little dressing rooms. One of the dresses we tried on had several layers, and I could tell that one of the layers in my dress was messed up.

Without a mirror and without being able to move, there wasn’t much I could do to fix the problem. I called the bride into the room and asked for help. She dove down in the layers in my dress and started tugging and pulling them into place.

Um, my friend is up my dress. Not that I care, I mean, I don’t. It’s just weird to have your friend all up in your dress.

That was the first time I learned that this wedding stuff is not for the faint of heart. Things like this happened multiple times along the way.

I don’t want it to seem like I’m complaining about it, because that’s not my intention. Looking back, all the awkwardness is kind of funny now.

Another really awkward, really girly thing was the nail appointment a couple days before the wedding.

I’ve gotten my nails done professionally once. It was a fast thing, a basic manicure, nothing to write home about.

Everyone in the wedding party this time around got a gel manicure (I think, anyway). I’m not going to lie, they could have given me the crappiest manicure ever, as long as there was glitter on my body I would have been happy.

I didn’t realize how intense the appointment would be.

First, they cut off your cuticles, which basically made me feel like a person who has never, ever had a haircut.

I didn’t even know cutting that much off of my fingernails was possible.

There were more steps involved after that. Dip your fingers in hot water, dude said, then stick them under a hot light, and then do more uncomfortable stuff. (Am I the only one who thinks this is a little weird and kind of hurts? I never asked anyone, but I wondered that the entire time.)

I just remember the appointment was really long, and I couldn’t really face the rest of the wedding party or talk to them.

That leaves me facing a total stranger who is basically holding my hands the entire time.

Weird.

This dude I’ve never seen in my life is right up in my face, in my bubble, I don’t know how long I’ll be here and I don’t know whether I should be nice and talk to him, ignore him, or look away.

The weirdness just got weirder.

After the manicure was over and my nails were awesome and glittery, I noticed that my hands felt dry.

He mentioned he’d put lotion on my hands. Okay, that works. What I wasn’t expecting was a massage on each arm, up to the elbows.

Dude? I just wanted lotion on my hands. Stop it and get out of my bubble.

I’ve never gotten a gel manicure and I definitely don’t regret it. They look pretty awesome and they’ve lasted much longer than regular polish.

I wasn’t expecting a total stranger all up in my face, massaging my arms and just being so…there the entire time.

The fact that I’m an introvert explains a lot, so I’ll just leave it at that.

Even more disturbing, there was a woman getting a pedicure while we were getting manicures. I swear someone massaged her legs the entire time I was getting my nails done.

Am I the only one who thinks that’s creepy? Is this actually relaxing to some women?

I’m all for getting massages. I had one earlier this year and it was wonderful. In my mind, if you want a massage, you need to go get one and not go to a nail salon.

But hey, what do I know about life.

I had fun throughout all of this, and I’m grateful I got to be a part of my best friend’s wedding day.

However, I can’t imagine doing this on a regular basis for fun. This wedding stuff is a lot of work.

Baby moments

There were a lot of great wedding moments that I don’t want to forget from the weekend. Today I'm going to talk about the baby moments.

I peeked out from the room the bride and the bridesmaids were getting ready in, and I saw my family in the crowd. I immediately noticed that my nieces were wearing cute headbands with flowers on them.

Aw! Baby headbands and baby flowers!

I melted into a big pile of mush. I'm going to buy these kids anything they want when they're older. Don't tell them I said that.

In no particular order, my other favorite baby moments include:

•             I rocked one of my nieces to sleep during the song Cotton Eye Joe. This makes me smile, because everyone knows that's the most soothing song in the world. Ha, ha.
•          I looked at my parents during the ceremony, and the word sour best described the look on their faces. My first thought was, well, shit, I guess they don’t like my dress. When the photos were done after the ceremony, I asked them what was going on. They were making faces because the babies were farting and stinking up their section of seats. I specifically told the bride the babies would fart and cry at her wedding. As usual, I was right. This also makes me smile. Silly babies.
•             I went up and told the babies hi after the wedding. I looked pretty different, with my hair curled and different make up on. They looked at me and smiled. They're very smart babies.
•          The babies also liked watching the kids play, they liked looking at the lights during the dance, and they watched people dance. I told them that maybe next year they’d be big enough to play and dance.

Dance like an idiot.

I’ve been thinking over the past few days about what my favorite moment of the wedding was.

I think I have an answer. The dinner was good, the grand march was fun, the song that tells you to hop might be my favorite thing in the history of things, and seeing the first dance was cool.

The best man and maid of honor speeches were some of the best I’ve heard, too.

But none of those things were my favorite things.

I think my favorite thing was not paying attention to my phone. There were no selfies, no Facebook status updates, and no photos of the beautiful bride and I after the ceremony.

Phones are great, photos are great, yes, but I don’t think they should play a part in a wedding. Weddings are for being happy, making memories, and being around people you’ve known your entire life.

If anyone wants my excellent advice for attending weddings or being a part of a wedding party, it’s this: put your phone away, have a drink, and dance like an idiot.

That was my favorite part.

There’s also a pretty awesome lyric in the song Mambo No. 5: A little bit of Monica in my life.

My wedding hair.

The pre-wedding debacle

My best friend got married on Saturday.

Before I go into how fun it was, I need to tell you what happened the day of. It's pretty funny and something that would only happen to me.

I wear both contacts and glasses. What I really want is Lasik, but you don't always get what you want.

I go through phases where I like wearing glasses and phases where I prefer contacts.

I've been in a glasses mood lately. I have this weird personality quirk where I don't like being photographed in glasses, though.  I knew I wanted a photo of us at the rehearsal dinner, so I thought I'd put my contacts in.

The contacts I used on Friday night were brand new, straight out of the package, as was the contact solution I used. I washed my hands 5,000 times and got the contacts in on the second try.

I noticed they stung a little afterward, but it wasn't super painful and it wasn't noticeable. Me putting in contacts is sometimes a traumatic hour-long experience, so I was happy it was quick this time around.

Friday night came and went, then I made a huge mistake and slept in my contacts. Yeah, I probably shouldn't have done that, but I haven't worn contacts in months and I didn't think anything of it.

Then 7 a.m. Saturday rolls around, and it's time to wake up. I swiped my phone to turn the alarm off, and I noticed that hey, looking at a bright phone kind of hurts. Actually, it really hurts.

Hm. What's going on?

I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I was horrified. My right eye was bloodshot and oozing...stuff. The contact in it felt like a knife. My other eye was a little red, too.

I looked like I had pink eye.

I knew I was going to be photographed, so I sat down to think of an eyeball plan. It took me about 20 minutes to realize what was happening. I did not have pink eye, I didn't put my fingers in my eyes without washing them several times first, I didn't use old contacts. In fact, I was pretty sure I did everything correctly.

I spent a lot of time outside this week. I figured it out then - my allergies were angry and were attempting to murder my eyes.

Stupid allergies!

I didn't have time to freak out about this, so I didn't. It's wedding day, and I had to come up with a plan.

 I had several different options:

1. I could just leave the contacts in, be in pain and misery all day, and walk around with something that looked like an infectious disease;
2. I could wear glasses;
3. I could take the contacts out, take some allergy medicine, see how I felt in after a while, then try to put the contacts back in.

I decided on option 3. This was tricky, because there was a huge chance that it wouldn't work. I think it's also important to note that I've never, ever had a problem like this before.

Everyone who knows me well knows how much I love it when unexpected things happen to me. In the words of my dog - Snort.

There was a list of things I was worried about this weekend, and my eyes were nowhere near the top of the list. In fact, they weren't even on the list.

Oh, life.

I took some medicine right after 7 a.m. Saturday. I noticed a difference a within a few minutes, so I took some more allergy medicine.

By 8:30 a.m., I sat down nervously in front of my mirror. I accepted the fact that I might have to wear glasses. First world problem, I thought. Who cares?

When I looked in the mirror, I was pleasantly surprised. The redness wasn't completely gone, but it no longer looked like someone punched me in the eyeballs.

I gave it 15 more minutes, and then put my contacts in. I got them both in on the first try, and neither eye really stung that much.

My plan actually worked! I wore the contacts all day, was not in any pain, and looked kind of normal and not like I lost a bet.

Words of advice for anyone with allergies: Don't skip your allergy shot.

Oh well. Some life lessons need to be learned first hand.

(I did not take a photo of my red eyes. Instead, here are my awesome nails. Glitter!)