Back to Reality...

As my track out return approaches, I am taking a moment to weigh the positives and negatives of summer coming to an end. Let's start with the cons so we can end on a positive note, que?


Cons:
1) No more 2 hour breakfasts while bs'ing on the computer and catching up on Real Housewives episodes
2) White shoes, shorts, dresses, etc are in storage until April (if you don't follow this rule we have a problem)
3) The pool will be closing and my skin will return to a shade that proves I am of Irish/Welsh descent
4) Strawberries, blueberries, bananas and watermelon prices will skyrocket
5) Bye bye nightly cookouts
6) Can no longer play Will Smith's Summertime




Pros:
1) I get to see my kids, all 22 of em!
2) Jeans and slacks = less shaving!
3) The pool will be closing and I will therefore postpone getting skin cancer a few more years.
4) Pumpkin. Nuff said.
5) Tailgating and FOOTBALL!
6) Too soon for Christmas music?

What are your fave/least fave things about saying adios to Summatime?

DC Recap

Phew, so I'm back. Unless you have been under a rock or haven't watched TV this week, you know my beloved Hokies lost to Boise State Monday night. Sadly, this was the main reason we traveled to DC so pretty huge bummer. Luckily, we had many other fun things on the agenda to ease the pain and the experience of being at Fed Ex field was almost worth it in itself.

I'm not going to give you a full recap of the trip because A- I am tired since I'm back to work and B- You probably don't give two s**ts and just want to see pictures. Well, enjoy!

Super sweet memorial if you haven't gotten a chance to see it yet.
Too bad it wasn't around years ago so great heroes like my great grandfather could have seen the beauty in person.



Subway riding and walking all over the Nation's Capital. Funny thing is that I grew up here and had seen almost of of this stuff multiple times. Moving away makes me realize how lucky I was to have so many pieces of history right at my disposal. Plus, planning field trips would be a zillion times easier if i lived up there!

Visiting George and Martha's Crib- aka Mount Vernon
The Nats suck, but their stadium is super sick and my man Abe pulled out the win in the Presidents Race.

Am I obsessed with Picasa collages much?

Busy bee...

I am tracked out which means no work for 3 weeks. This means I should be on point with blogging and keep you beyond updated on my happenings and opinions.

Well, believe it or not I am super busy. Subbed all day Thursday and Friday. Think I'm insane? You are probably right, but it's $88 after taxes and I only work at my school so I have the upper hand on these little people. I also work over at the high school selling tickets for JV and Varsity football games once a week. So that's the 3rd of my 4 jobs but for $12 and hour, why wouldn't I? Friday night we had some friends over and I drank way too much wine. Which means today I felt awwwwwful and was pretty useless until after lunch.

Now comes the fun part...Labor Day weekend plans. I have the greatest in-laws on the planet and they are taking hubby and I on a 4 day trip to D.C. to see our beloved Hokies season opener against Boise State. VTech will be sporting the new black jerseys that Nike created for only 10 teams; fairly rowdy, right? Also on the agenda, a Nats game, sightseeing around the DC area, and I get to visit my BFF Kim who I introduced you to a few months back.

I'll be sure to give you a recap when we return. Keep the laboring to a minimum and have a fabulous weekend!

Spontaneity is sexy...

So Matt and I have been going through a spontaneous streak lately. What we eat for dinner, movies to watch, introducing the idea then booking a trip to NYC the week of Christmas in a 20 minute period (more on that at another time...)

Case and point- this past Saturday we had typical plans of cleaning house, going to the gym, and running errands around town. As I was getting ready for our scheduled errands, he asked "wanna go to the beach"?

My typical reaction: "Sure, and I'd also like a million dollars, but we planned to run errands. Plus, I don't want to drive 3 hours to turn around and come back the next day. Plus, what would we do with the dog, gah!"

My new spontaneous self: "Yes! When do we leave?"

So we packed up our stuff and our pup, gassed up the car, and headed down to Holden Beach. This is Papi eating in my lap en route since he'd been rushed out the door before.

I was impressed with myself for embracing a trait that I frankly am not. And my husband finds this new leaf hotter than "slut shoes" and cleavage. I plan on making the most of our "newlywed" period and making it last for a few more years. But who knows, as spontaneous as we are lately we may just up and adopt triplets tomorrow (Please dear God, notify the authorities in that case because we are NOT qualified for that).

Me and my big mouth...

Remember my beautiful tree rantings LESS than 2 weeks ago?


Here sits said tree today.

Not a single bloom in sight and it seems a spider colony has taken over. Ugh...

Fantasy football- not just for the boys anymore

For years I have wanted to be involved in the insanity that is NFL fantasy football. Matt has been managing teams and commisioning leagues since his teenage years and it was tortorous listening to him talk about his players, trophies, blah blah blah when I was just thinking to myself "it's not friggin real!" At some point, if you can't beat em, join em, right? I wanted to get in on the fun so 2 seasons ago, I asked Matt if I could join his league. Big mistake. Not only did he laugh hysterically, but he said there was no way in hell he'd be "that guy" who let his woman into the league. I am confident that his overt display of sexism was really fear that I would be victorious my first (and consequently only) year in, and that was a risk he wasn't willing to take. Or, he may have thought my wealth of football knowledge was on par with this guy...

In an effort to rectify this injustice, 2 seasons ago I began my own all female league, the "Pigskin Princesses"and last year the "Football Fems"". Sure, there were a few team mangers who were exactly like the dude featured above and some people (not going to mention any names since they have since tried to save face) didn't touch their rosters for the entire 2nd half of the season. But this 3rd season- now called "Not Your Grandma's League", things are getting pretty serious. We've gone from 8 to 10 teams, and have recruited some new, excited and knowledgeable members who will provide surefire competition all season.

I know some of my readers are bored to tears over this post, and believe me, I feel ya. I spend hours studying, predicting, watching, and strategizing how to make my team the most successful, but why should you care? Me gushing over how many yards my running back rushed for and the fact that my QB is up against Lions defense this week means nothing to you. Kinda like your kid's potty training updates or the fact they like or don't like applesauce...

Too harsh? Must be the competition kicking in. Tomorrow night for my draft I'm hitting the bar on $2.50 Pint night and raising a glass to football, fun, and not giving a fuzz what the boys think.

Pretzel M&M's have crack in them, no?

Everyone has their weaknesses when it comes to snack food.

Mine has always been the sweet and salty combination snacks. Honey nut Chex Mix and chocolate covered pretzels were particularly hard to say no to. For that reason, I try to NEVER keep them in the house. Why? Out of sight, out of mind. If they are sitting there however, it's scary how many I can put away in one sitting. I realize that if I cut out this behavior (and booze) I would weigh 20 less pounds, but hey the main reason i work out is so I CAN eat!

This system was working swimmingly for me until I saw this...

Good God they have managed to create the most delicious bite sized snack imaginable. And I can't ignore it because this product is popping up everywhere. As a centerpiece at a friend's party and even Coach Rex Ryan on HardKnocks was talking about his addiction to them. My outta sight rule obviously wasn't prepared for this.

What's worse? I find out it's really not "that bad" for you. Mars boasts that inside that bag is only 150 calories and 5 grams of fat!

At that point my obsession with these went from a little overboard to unhealthy. I had Matt take me to 3 different grocery stores/gas stations to find these at 10pm one night. Yesterday I go to Walgreens and find myself downright giddy that they are on sale BOGO. I may need to be committed...

I give the new pretzel M&M's an: A+ (there's a first for everything my friends)

Garfield ain't got nothing on this hairball

As a kid, did you ever play that game, "What's grosser than gross" where you tried to outdo one another on disgustingly vile situations and scenarios? If only I'd had this to show all my neighborhood buddies from back then:

No, it's not a decaying animal or a torture chamber; it's the amount of hair our Shark picked up in ONE room of our house! Granted, it was the room I typically "do" my hair, but still! We have resorted to using this as our main vacuum ever since I accidentally ran over the electrical cord with the vacuum itself on my new expensive Christmas present from last year(whoopsie). This little guy does a great job of picking up dirt (and obviously hair as well) but I have to stop every 3-4 minutes to empty to dust tray and literally yank the hundreds of hairs that are wrapped around the rotating brushes. Oh, and to throw up a bit because EWWW, what is wrong with me?!
I bring this up because I had a near mental breakdown last week over my hair loss. I am not balding, but am sure at this rate I will be at some point. I already have the thinnest, stick straight hair in America and am fairly certain I lose about 3X's as much hair as the average person (I researched this folks).

So of course in order to correct this issue, I look at symptoms.

1. Too much stress- I'm a teacher...so yes
2. Being on birth control for too long- is 8 years a long time? Fine, yes
3. Hormone imbalance- well i did have half of my thyroid gland removed, so yes
4. Blowdrying or overstyling- heck no, Matt is lucky if I do my hair for our date nights
5. Brushing hair while wet- guilty as charged

Of course I am freaking out when I realize almost all the signs relate to me. I have already resorted to washing my hair every other day, although it pains me to not wash it immediately after each trip to the gym. It sounds like nothing really happens when people go to dermatologists and endocrinologists, and other docs will just put you on anti-depression meds. Am I that much of a lost cause that rather than save my hair, they just try to keep you from getting depressed over your fleeing folicles?

In the mean time I will be brushing less, vacumming more, and trying to find ways to remove stress from areas of my life. Too bad the number one source pays our bills...

Five Below

Meet the newest chain to hit the Raleigh area:Five Below. At first I thought it was a snowboard store (which I thought to be odd for our area) or maybe an icecream shoppe. After doing some research however, I was stoked to discover that it's a bargain store! It's kind of like the Dollar Store, if the Dollar Store was infused with pop culture and Old Navy. If you know me well, you know that even $5 is no bargain for me on many things so I wouldn't really call a lot of items a "steal". I kept unloading my shopping cart throughout the trip because my "treasure box" prizes and trivia games were adding up to big bucks quickly. By the time I hit the register, I spent $20 and bought multiple things I absolutely didn't need, just wanted. My 2 favorite buys are the magnets below ($3 each) and it was hard not to buy many more 30 Rock and SNL sayings for our fridge.

This certainly would have been one of my top stores if I were in high school or still living the dorm life. However, the only really good items I found were school or collector-related, so don't go there thinking you can stock up on house supplies. I know I'll be back however to see what new items the season brings in, and definitely for some Christmas gifts and stocking stuffers.

I give Five Below a: B+

Proof that there is a God

There are many reasons I believe in the big man upstairs (yes, I realize it's 2010 but I still think he's a man). I often am affirmed of this belief through nature. Beautiful sunsets (like this one from Sunset Beach, NC), perfectly placed clouds, shooting stars, and more commonly: flowers. I mean, they are stunning, right!? In my perfect world, I'd have flowers in every room of the house...but someone else would tend to them.

You see, there's a few things I'm good at: teaching, bargain shopping, and killing plants (and fish, but that's another story). Whether they are fresh store-bought, delivered, or planted and grown in my own backyard; sooner than later my once beautiful plant dies.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Matt and I try to tag team the yard duty so our place doesn't turn into a s**thole and one day we can sell it. I walked out in the yard the other day and looked down in disbelief at our dead grass and brown spots throughout the yard. But then I looked up to see our tree and my spirits were lifted! That's right folks, Carrie planted a tree TWO years ago and it's still alive! Sure, we assumed it had been dead for the past 8 months, but that's beside the point. This thang is a trooper!

My relationship with the tree didn't start off so hot. I arrived home from work one day to see it sitting on our front porch. I read that it was a wedding gift and since we were leaving for our honeymoon the next day it had to be planted immediately. Fan-friggintastic! Instead of packing I'm going to be planting a tree, which I have never done before in my life. I thought it would take about 15 minutes. Well, I live in North Carolina and all we have under grass is clay; lots of it. It took 1 1/2 hours to dig, plant, and cover and by the end I was sweaty, exhausted and covered in clay.

A month later I was pretty sure the tree was a lost cause.

Matt- "Maybe you didn't dig a big enough..."

me- "SHUSH, it's friggin dead, whatever"

Thank you tree for restoring my faith:)