Happy Birthday!

Oh My! He finally made a decision! Nothing big, mind you, just where he'd like to eat for his birthday dinner. Friday night my husband and I went to...drumroll please....Catfish Hole for his birthday. Not exactly what I had in mind. I will tell you honestly that I do like catfish, I enjoy fried food, (well, fried anything acutally) and I was pretty excited to get into and out of a restaurant in less than an hour. I mean who has time to sit and linger? Not us! We can do that at home. I mean why else would we have said home? 'Sit and linger' is a perfect reason if you ask me! Lately its been sit and watch _______ on TV. Fill that blank with any sport-football, basketball, golf, football, and basketball. (None of the other sports are really in season to mention...I guess golf isn't either...but anyway). I don't know what I'm complaining about, at least my husband doesn't watch that hunting and fishing stuff. A friend of mine tells us stories of falling asleep to turkey calls. I would go INSANE!

I, of course, choose a much better genre of television. If it has anything to do with the Food Network, HGTV, E, Discovery or TLC, I'm there. Ohhhh Emeril Live or Rachel Ray....no, no, no...Dr. 90210 and some oogey surgery or human gene anomalies. That gets me interested. I only partake of one network show regularly, Grey's Anatomy. Which was a rerun last night, grrrr... My sis in law has turned me onto America's Next Top Model, which may be dangerous. Jeremy may have to become a closet watcher of it just like he was of Laguna Beach or Real World. Anyway, I digress.

I guess my point is that I've become weirdly old...or something. I LIKE staying home. I set my schedule up around...gasp...TV. (Thank heavens for TiVo) I like quick, country-style restaurants (maybe I outghta put some quilts up on the wall for decoration...i gotta figure out how to quilt first). I like to go home on Friday nights. I'm becoming pickier about restaurants...what age does that happen? I really never cared before and lately I find myself saying things like, "if I am going to spend money on food I want it to taste great"...and "if I want a hamburger I would've stayed home and cooked one there." Which leads me to my next story.

For aforementioned husband's birthday, his family took all of us out to dinner at a lovely little chain barbecue restaurant, Smoky Bones. The two previous times my hubby and I had been there, we enjoyed it, but this time...not so much. Our waiter was...how shall I put it...lacking in the brain cell department, at a loss for IQ points. He took about 10 minutes to write down our drink orders...and that was our first clue. Forever later we got our drinks and put in an order for an appetizer and placed our dinner order. Apparently they were out of several items on the menu. We had to ask for refills a few times and for our appetizer before we got them. Also, at one random point, the waiter asked us if we mentioned anything about onion rings. We all looked at each other and figured out no one had even mentioned onion rings (although we had mentioned something about a palm tree and my friend's boss stabbing her-totally untrue, mind you). So the waiter and the manager, or shall I call him his mob boss, (shirt unbuttoned too far, big gold chain) came over to clear up our order. We finally figured out that they didn't have some of the things that were part of our order and had to completely change two or three orders. I guess we were a little disgruntled because brain-lacking waiter continued to get a little hostile with us, at which time mob boss apologized. Brain-lacker subsequently delivered our appetizer with a holiday shove onto the table and a cheery "Merry Christmas." Mob Boss then approached the table and said he would "take care" of our bill. I didn't really know what that would mean coming from him, but apparently it means its on the house. For some reason they didn't offer us any dessert or a happy birthday song for my hubby. Go figure. Maybe it was the three cent tip we left, cuz as my father in law put it, "I didn't want him to think I forgot his tip."

What?....

What's that, you say? You want to see more pictures of me? And my beautiful children?

Jeremy and Adrienne
As for that pic, well, Jeremy's 26 in human years, of course (189 in dog years-sheesh), due to be 27 tomorrow, Dec. 16. I am 25 and will be 26 in April. (mark your calendars) I will not be calculating my age in dog years, because, well, quite honestly, 26 feels old enough. I'm on the downhill slippery slope towards 30! I can't even say that out loud! We are going out to eat for J's birthday tomorrow night, if he can ever decide where we are going. I keep making suggestions and his answer keeps being, "maybe." Well, there's not much more time for maybes. I didn't get him anything for his birthday because a couple months ago we agreed that he would get some basketball shoes and that would be his birthday gift. I'm sure he has forgotten about that now, but you know he was the one born right before Christmas, not me...I timed it well being a spring baby. So it's not my fault! I was planning ahead even in the womb. Some people's kids.




Bosleigh is the beautiful black labrador. She's 3 in human years, and 21 in dog years. Riley is my chocolate lab mix. She's 1 in human years and 7 in dog years. They're beautiful, they stink, and I love them.

Finally

Here's a pic of the house. Exciting, I know. The grass is a lovely shade of dead, but at least the sky is blue. It was about 40 degrees this morning, which is warm for the weather we've been having. Especially after having run off the road Thursday from ice...that's a whole other story. The pic on the right is a view of my dining room. I didn't take any pics of my kitchen, because honestly, it was kinda messy. I will entertain you with one more pic of my house. A lovely picture of the living room.

Yes that's a dandy shade of 'school bus yellow' as my supportive husband puts it. And also that TV that is far too small for the built in entertainment center...I believe the words 'I can't even see it from the couch [on the left]' were uttered in my presence. Believe me, I have a cheap fix for that problem...don't sit on that couch. Voila!

SIGH

Okay...let's all take a collective sigh together...ready? Aaaahhhhhh...

The house is built. We are living in it and cluttering it up with our stuff. Of course there's still some small stuff to finish, but who needs paint on the columns outside, or patches made to the drywall where the stupid trim carpenter put holes in it, or curtains??? Not me, apparently, because right now, I'm too tired. Of course my husband finds it quite humorous to mention the fact that he plans on doing this all over again in two years. He says, I'll find this gorgeous piece of land and start bringing around house plans and telling you how much money we'll make on our house by selling and how much we'll have paid on the new one and you'll be bossing me around in no time. Hmmmm....I'm already enthralled just at the mention of it, but I am also quickly overcome by extreme exhaustion. Have-no-motivation-whatsoever exhaustion. Maybe the fact that winter is coming just adds to it. I have a lot of trouble making my body want to move when it gets cold. It is happy curling up in flannel and fleece under my super cuddly cashmere throw blanket...on my new couch...watching Grey's Anatomy on DVR. Just the thought of it makes me want to go home.

Visit to Bryant

Well I find myself at home....wait, is this what I call this? I am at my childhood home. My real home is three hours northwest of here, but for some reason I still refer to my mother's house as home. Every time I drive back into this weirdly familiar yet unfamiliar place it strikes me that it's not really home. I may call it that, but I see no familiar faces or places. Even my high school has changed so much, I wouldn't really know where to go. Since graduating from college, my marriage and the death of my father, this place has lost some sentimentality to me. I used to think it was the best place on earth. The best place to live...but lately I just kinda think....it's ugly. I guess it happens to everyone, but it was very gradual for me. My 'home friends' get mad at me for saying any of these things, but it's true. My best friend says, "does this mean you're never coming back to live here?" Well I'll never say never, but......

I look around and everywhere I see.....pregnant bellies. EVERY female from my close group of girl friends in high school either has a baby or is expecting one. Most of the wives in my husbands group of friends have a baby. Two of the girls I work with have babies and two are pregnant...and there's only 6 women at my work. I must say I do think about it. I am interested in it. I am even a little obsessed with what goes on during pregnancy. The way your body changes, the way you have a super-human sense of smell, all of it is interesting. BUT I realized only recently that that's where my interest stops. I am not ready to talk about breast feeding and pooping shedules. Its not to say that my friends are crazy to want those things, I'm sure its some immaturity on my part. I guess a part of my feels like I have really gone thru such a crazy time these last few years. I think I have really become myself in the last few years, like I've finally come into my own. I'm happy with who I am and I 'm comfortable in my skin. It has taken me a long time to be able to say that. Now I just want to enjoy my skin for a little while before it gets stretched around a growing fetus. Luckily my husband is at the same stage as I. He jokingly made a proposition that we would only raise dogs and horses. Part of me thinks that wouldn't be so bad. Not really, I know I will change my mind, but for now, dogs it is.

Well now that I've been about as thoughtful and articulate as I'm afraid I can be, I will tuck myself into bed at my mom's house. I will pull out some random book and read until I fall asleep with it on my face. The only thing I'm missing is my bed partner...my husband is three hours away! Where's my dog? OOOoohhhh Bosleigh!.....

Adrienne 

It's been awhile!

Ok, I'm finally back. I don't know why its taken me so long. Here I am done with beauty school, ready to get to work in the 'real world' and terrified. Terrified because I have a house in the almost completed stage and have no real steady income as of yet. Terrified because eventually I would love to have kids and that dream seems to be pushing itself further and further away. (Who or what's doing the pushing? me? my goals? my husband's career goals? my finances? Probably all of the above.)

On a much lighter note, my best friend is delivering her baby today. She's in the hospital 3 hours away from me. I got off work for a day in order to drive down and see her. Hopefully she can hang on to that baby until I get there! If she were reading this right now, she would probably be kicking me at even suggesting it! I will update my page with pictures of him when he makes it into this world.

I will also have to post some pictures of my new house! I am super excited about it. We have it a little more than halfway painted...and can I say, I hate painting? We picked out some rich colors and sometimes they make me a little nervous, but I think when we get some furniture in there it will look good. I am looking forward to the move-in, but NOT looking forward to the $12 million a month mortgage payment. (ok, gross exaggeration, but you get the picture).