The big 3-5

I have to say so far that 35 is not my favorite! I was so excited to have my birthday (Tuesday) off, because there was so much I wanted to do. My main goal was to get to Pi-Yo (a pilates/yoga mixed class that my gym only offers on Tuesday mornings, hence I can never go!) and since Josh took the day off, I thought he and I could get lunch together or something and just have a fun day. Then maybe some reading and a nap in the afternoon. Sounded perfect. And oh, leftover cake for breakfast also sounded like a great idea.

I stayed up a little later than usual on Monday night, since I knew I didn't have to go to work the next day, but when I tried to go to sleep, tummy trouble struck. I was up sick until about 2 a.m. and then awake at 6 a.m., still feeling like crap. Josh made me some toast, but it quickly became apparent that the gym was out, and my day of fun was just not going to happen. I hated feeling so miserable on a day I had so many plans for, and I really hate that my stomach issues keep resurfacing but they cannot find a cause.

What did end up happening was a lot of laying around. Then I went through a couple boxes of pictures I had in the garage and really tried to pare them down to just ones I really wanted. I take a lot of pictures, and I had easily 20+ years worth and a lot of them were several of the same things. Here are some gems I found.

Me as a blonde in 1997 (!!) with Dimebag from Pantera. RIP, dude.


With Rex from Pantera:



And Vinnie:



And back around 1998-2002 I LOVED the band fuel. Went to more of their shows than I can count and met up with a lot of friends a long the way. Here are a few photos from when a bunch of us met up in Wilkes-Barre PA for a show around 2001. It was so fun. And man, I've always been a pale chick, but do I look flourescent white or what?



We bought gigantic underwear at Walmart and wrote things on them and threw them onstage. It was fun. Notice the giant underwear on my head that I am wearing like a do-rag... Oh, to be young and thin again!





These are just pictures of the pictures that I snapped with my iPhone, so sorry for the quality. I wish I would have taken one of the photo of us with the whole band and the giant underwear. Fun times! They always got a kick out of seeing the same groups of us at different shows. Really nice guys, and man I loved their music. Wish they were still together!

Florida (I think?) with my friend Danyel, 1999... I cannot believe I was ever this thin. Wow!! And I didn't even have to try. I even have a slight tan, can you believe it?



Memphis, 2001:


My first Fuel show - meeting Brett Scallions. I was totally starstruck for some reason. And good lord, I look 15 instead of 22!



I found this so humorous, I had to put it on my facebook wall:



The closest I got to a festive meal was some leftover birthday cake and cheese and crackers with Fig Jam:



I returned to work yesterday to find these lovely flowers from my brother-in-law and sister-in-law who live in CO. Love them!



I'm feeling better now, and good thing, too. My mom and aunt are arriving from Ohio late this afternoon and I'm going to be busy this weekend cooking and showing them the sights. They leave Monday morning, so I took the day off to recuperate (I'm going to need to!)... Next weekend I can hopefully start canning.

Great week and weekend!

Life has just been fun lately.

Josh ordered me my favorite birthday cake from my favorite bakery - Sweet and Sassy! They have this fudgy icing that I absolutely adore. I'm a big advocate of homemade cakes for birthdays (for other people) because it means more when you make the effort, I think. But for my birthday, personally, I need Sweet and Sassy's fudge icing, or it's just not the same!



Now to explain the cake decor. Josh calls me "Foo Foo Shnickens", hence the "Happy Birthday Foo Foo" part. As for the rest of it... I call Josh every day on my drive home from work and I almost always (ok, ALWAYS) ask if we got any good mail (I have a lot of magazine subscriptions, so getting one constitutes a "good mail" day for me). If he says no, I always reply "What? No flowers, cards or balloons?" So he made sure that my birthday cake had flowers, cards, AND balloons on it! Sweet, huh?

Saturday evening we had Tim and Meredith over to eat some cake with us. We also grilled out and of course I got some good cheese and crackers. Perhaps one of my favorite things about having people over is an excuse to go buy some good cheese from Whole Foods. This time I got my favorite blue (Shropshire), a wonderful gouda (Van Gogh), and another wonderful, buttery cow's milk cheese called Amadeus.

Tim and Meredith both had birthdays last week, so I got to give them their gifts as well. Gosh, I love buying birthday gifts!!

July Birthday Peeps:



Waiting on my cake:



Horribly unflattering photo of me, but my husband can certainly rock a t-shirt!



Any guesses as to what I wished for?














Yesterday, we went to Josh's Aunt's pool. The water was perfect, but I still ended up a little crispy. Ouch!









You can never have too many flotation devices!!





I greatly enjoyed floating around... it was worth the sunburn!



Tomorrow is my actual birthday, so I am taking the day off. No concrete plans, but I do want to hit the gym and just kind of enjoy life a bit. My mom and aunt come into town on Thursday, so I am going to have a busy weekend. Next Monday, when they leave, I'd like to do some canning, but that really depends on how worn out I am after the weekend!

Guess what today is?

Reminiscing...

Funny how time can fuzz out bad memories and make you think only of the good stuff. Of course, I am referring to my little one bedroom apartment in the barrio.

The place was an absolute DUMP. I was going through a divorce and needed a cheap place to live (since I also had a car payment and only one income), and this place was cheap and close to work, at least. I lived there from July 2008 to July 2009, when I moved into my current house.

The entire apartment was sloping downward, which meant my toilet was even crooked. Every surface was painted white, and when I mean every surface, I mean the counters and bathtub, too. I picked up a second job in the evenings, which meant I was working 14 hours or so some days. I even had to work weekend days sometimes. Sanity, money, and free time were all in VERY short supply. I was definitely the minority in that apartment complex. Almost no one spoke english, and it was a really rough area. People would get in fights in the stairwell all the time. I remember once there was a fight right outside my door and one guy was slamming another guy against my outside wall so hard that things were about to fall off of my shelves.

Although I hated the place and couldn't wait to move, I look back at it fondly now. Why? It was one of the worst time periods in my life... But, for several months at least (until the second job at Goodwill drained me of all energy and seduced me into bringing tons more crap into my house), it was organized. Somehow, in a 600 sq. foot apartment, with only two closets and a sloping toilet, I had a place for everything.

For reasons that still escape me today, I put a lot of effort into making that little dump as homey as I could.

I looked through the photos I took of the place the other day, and it shocks me how juvenile it all looks. I guess it's the stark white walls that screamed "RENTAL", and maybe it's why I love being enveloped in all that wall color at my house today. But anyway, I thought I'd share some pictures of that VERY humble little abode.

Bathroom when I first moved in:





 I bought fresh flowers every week to inject a little life into the place.

Then I switched up my towels, rugs and shower curtain:







Bless my heart, I tried.

Tiniest kitchen ever.



Crooked toilet:



I did the best with what I had. Eventually I had fiesta plates above the sink/stove for a 'backsplash' effect. I'm actually thinking about doing the same thing in my current kitchen.



Notice the large cutting board over the stove so I had more 'prep' space. Can you believe I cooked an entire (and my first-ever) Thanksgiving dinner in here?





More fresh flowers!

I painted the stools black...







Organized drawers!







Bedroom desk area:



More bedroom:









Closet:



storage side of closet:



May favorite things in the place were my shelves and console table in the living room. I just loved finding new stuff to display! I really wish someone would put shelves up in my living room now!





Living room (at Christmastime, obviously):









Not sure why I'm feeling so nostalgic for the old dump... It sure wasn't that pretty, was it? Poor little place. For some inexplicable reason, some days I miss it.