Let Them Eat Cake

On Sunday I attended another baby shower for Miss Kayleigh, I must really love that girl!

We all had a great time, good food, beautiful decorations and an awesome cake! I wish I was half as talented as Kayleigh's Mom. She can do anything, and when I say anything I mean anything, faux finish walls, decorate beautifully, refinish/recover furniture, paint wonderful pieces of art, AND she bakes! She makes not only beautiful cakes, but delicious too!

It was a three layer cake, chocolate on the bottom, carrot in the middle and french vanilla on top.  Before you ask, yes I tried all three.

Yes!  That's a baby!  Don't worry, we didn't eat it ;)

If you live in the Houston area, I highly recommend Cindy for any of your cake needs.  You can check out some more of her stuff here

Thank you for being a friend

In case you've been living on an island inhabited by "Others", let me be the one to share some sad news with you. Rue McClanahan, from The Golden Girls, died yesterday, and now we're only left with one golden girl, Betty White.

Whenever I watch The Golden Girls, and believe me I'm on my second or third round of all episodes by now, I'm reminded of two of my best friends from high school, Tessa and Ashley. At the end of high school and beginning of college we spent a lot of time together and I remember one day while we were of course watching Blanche, Rose and Dorothy, comparing ourselves and our friendship to that of those three crazy girls.

Ashley was always one to tell you what was on her mind, and she was always the voice of reason when Tessa and I were being ridiculous. I remember one day, it was sophomore year of college and I had put on a few pounds (that I'm still trying to lose) and we were all jeans shopping. I DID NOT want to go up a pants size so we went from store to store trying to find pants that fit, in the size I thought I was. Finally Ashley yelled at me in the dressing room, "Just go up a size! You've gained weight, deal with it!" She was right, she usually was, just like Dorothy.

If anyone knows Tessa then you know it wasn't hard to compare her to Rose. We all love her, but she might be considered, sometimes, once in a while, or at least once or twice, a little bit silly. Like the time she decided to make Lucky Charm treats, and use colored marshmallows so they would be really colorful. FYI, they were brown, and horrible. Come to think of it, I MIGHT have been involved in that process as well, but I think it was her idea. Or mine. Who's really keeping track?

I, was of course, Blanche. I was always the one that came up with the big (usually bad) ideas and plans and drug them along. Actually it was usually me and Tessa dragging Ashley along. But wherever we went we always had fun!!

We were always together, always had each others back and they are definitely friends of mine for life. And even though we live in three different states, when we see each other we always pick up where we left off. Miss you girls!

Get Lost

Our downstairs AC went out last week, so we were without air conditioning all weekend downstairs. Yes, feel sorry for us, it was HOT! Because of this, we spent a lot of time upstairs where it was cooler, not cold, but cooler, where we had ourselves a little Lost marathon.

IMPORTANT NOTE: We are only half way through season 3, DO NOT tell me what happens!

While watching episode after episode of Lost, I couldn't help but think about how some of the characters in the show remind me of people in my very own life.

Jeff and Jack have more in common than just the first letter of their name. They both also married blondes! Hopefully Jeff can hold onto his better than Jack did though ;) Love you baby!

Let's face it. You want to like Sawyer, you really do, but he just makes it so hard! Just.Like.Audie. I mean, has he ever said anything nice to me?? Nope. And yet, I still like him!! There's still time to make it all up to me Audie, there's still time.

While we're on the topic of those Alaska relatives. I say Shandra and Hurley could have an awesome "Biggest Hair" contest any day! My money is on Shandra.

I don't know about anyone else in my family, but if I was going to be stuck on an island I'd want my step dad Phil (or Bear Grylls, he's amazing!) there. Like John, he can do just about anything.

Sun is nice to everyone and is always there to help out. Just like my lovely sister Angie. She's always been the nice one :) And they have the same color of hair!!

You got me. Jim is not on Lost, but holy crap, he reminds me so much of my brother Mark it's ridiculous! You might not believe me, but I've gotten the look that's on Jim's face from Mark many times in my life.

And of course, Lily reminds me of Vincent, the resident island dog of Lost. Although Lily is cuter, smarter and more cuddley.

Same weather, Different state

Jeff and I just got back from Florida from a little vacation. It wasn't so much a real vacation as he met me after a conference I had in Orlando and we stayed the weekend, but hey, at least we got away!

I LOVE Pat O'Brien's

We did NOTHING! And it was absolutely fabulous! We stayed at the Loews Royal Pacific at Universal Studios. On Thursday we hung out at the hotel pool and then on Friday we decided to check out another hotel at Universal, The Hard Rock Hotel. It was pretty cool and their pool was waaaay cool because they had ledges where you could sit and still be in the water! It was all super cool until a kid pooped in the pool! Yuck, yuck, yuck! We took that as our sign that we should check out the other Loews hotel at Universal, the Portofino. The walk was so long (I'm talking 10ths of a mile here people) that when we got there I promptly fell asleep in their comfy lounge chair until Jeff woke me up. Meanie head.

Jeff wants to be a Nascar driver

All three hotels were very very nice and I would recommend staying there to anyone that is visiting Universal Studios or Islands of Adventure. We decided to check out both parks on Saturday and because we were staying at the Royal Pacific all we had to do was show our room key at each ride and we got in the Express line, which was AWESOME! We waited in line for no longer than 10 minutes at any ride. I'll tell you what. I have no clue how parents with little kids do these amusement parks (but I'm sure I'll find out!)

a) you're spending a week's salary to get in the park
b) you're spending another week's salary to eat in the park
c) you're spending ANOTHER week's salary keeping Mom and Dad boozed up. (haha...just joking.....maybe)
d) it's hot, you walk a lot, kids are slow and I get cranky when I'm tired and hungry I can't imagine a kid being tired and hungry

Another word of advice. If you are leaving Orlando airport on a Sunday give yourself at least 1 1/2 hours to check in and get through security. Sheesh.

The only picture of Jeff and I together because I have nightmares about giving a stranger my camera and watching it fall from their hands and crash on the ground into a million (or really more likely 2) pieces.

Man, Jeff really does LOVE Nascar!

Happy Mother's Day

"God could not be everywhere, therefore he made mothers"

I have the best Mom anyone could ask for, she's always there when you need her, she's given up so much to give my sister, brother and I whatever we wanted growing up, she's always chock full of advice (whether we want it or not!), she's been our biggest cheerleader in life, always encouraging us to do what we want, she loves to lend a helping hand with house projects and always has an opinion on them :)

Long story short, I hope I will be as good of a Mom as my Mom is. Love you Mom!!

Mmmm...cake

If you know me then you know I am very into fitness and I always have been. Never mind the fact that I work out every morning but I get winded walking up the three flights of stairs at work. What's up with that?? *On a side note, if anyone in the Houston area is looking for a gym, let me know. My gym is awesome and I have a one week guest pass and a free lunch pass :)

I recently wrote in my work blog about the excuses that people have to not work out and how when you really think about it, you have NO EXCUSE. One of my coworkers recently had a baby and she works out everyday. If she can do it while working, keeping house and having a baby under 1 year old then anyone can make time to work out.

So now, on to my pitfall....dieting. I suck big time at dieting. I'm not sure what my problem is, but the more I think about what I am eating, the more crap I end up eating! If I'm trying to make an effort to cut out sweets, then all I end up eating is sweets!

I've realized, as I've gotten older, that I'm at the point now where if I feel like I've gained a few pounds I can't just work out and lose them. Now I HAVE to watch what I eat. And the only thing I'm currently watching is the chocolate cake going into my mouth.

So what's my excuse for not eating right?? It's not rhetorical, I'm actually looking for excuses, help me out people!!

Oh Baby!

This past weekend, Rachel and I hosted a baby shower for our friend Kayleigh, who is due in July. She is planning on naming the baby Victoria so I figured I'd better at least throw her a shower! Don't tell Rachel about the name though, Kayleigh doesn't want her to know she's picked it out yet...shhh!

The beautiful Mommy to be!

We had lots of yummy food, and because it was all small in size that means it was all small in calories so you can eat more! And if you know Rachel or me at all then you KNOW we had mimosas. We were good hostesses too and offered regular o.j. for the pregnant chicks.

Rachel arranged all the pretty flowers in "Cafe Lind". I'm thinking about keeping my living room set up this way, you know, just in case a bunch of people stop by and want to have tea or something.

Everyone had a great time making scrap book pages with advice for Kayleigh for after the baby is born. I'm in the process of adding pictures to the book so Baby Victoria can keep it forever and see how many people loved her even before she was born.

It was a super fun day with friends and family and I can't wait to meet Baby K (ok, her name really isn't Victoria, BUT they haven't filled out her birth certificate yet so I'm not giving up hope!) One thing is for sure, Baby K is going to have a lot of Aunts that will want to babysit, and we might have to fist fight Grandmas to do it!!