If we can send a man (or woman) to the moon, combine broccoli and asparagus and make it quite tasty, and witness Brittney Spears come back from brink of doom and gloom, then why can't they make my car horn have a variety of beeps. What am I talking about? I mean, sometimes a regular beep beep, toot toot is insufficient. Sometimes I need something that specifically states the thing I am trying to tell the other car. Here are a few I would use frequently....

*Beep Beep. That is not a parking space. It's a road. And you are blocking it. Move your stinkin' car!

*Toot Toot. I don't care if your wife/daughter/friend/boyfriend/neighbor is in Walmart/Grocery Store/Marshalls/Target. You cannot just sit in your car in front the store. You are blocking car traffic. And pedestrian traffic. And you are really ticking me off. Move your stinkin' car!

*Beep Beep. I'm not trying to scare you by waving my arms and shaking my hands. That's my car to car sign language for "you forgot to turn on your headlights." You're welcome. It happens to all of us once in a while.

*Toot Toot. Please turn your music down. It cannot be healthy to listen to it that loudly. I mean, your windows are up, my windows are up and I have my radio on. I can still clearly hear your music though. Too loud sugar!

*Beep Beep. Do you see that red light? Yeah, red means stop buddy!

*Toot Toot. Do you see that green light? It's my turn to go, not yours!

*Beep Beep. Do you see how the street is flanked by a sidewalk on either side? That's where you and your children and your dog and your baby stroller should be standing/walking/hanging out. Do you see the road? Look down, yes that road, where you are standing/walking/hanging out. Do you see my car and the other cars? The big hunks of metal with four wheels? Roads are for cars. I know, tricky. Now you know.

*Toot Toot. Just because you left your car running with your emergency lights blinking does not make it legal to park in the middle of the street and in front of a fire hydrant while your run in to shop/visit with friends/pick up food/or anything else.

*Beep Beep. Up here it's legal to turn left on red if the street is one way. So um, please turn. No one is coming and I have things to do today.

*Toot Toot. You are so rude to leave your shopping buggy in the middle of the parking space/lot!! Rude, rude, rude!! Be a peach and just return your buggy to the cart station like the rest of us.

Just to name a few.... I am actually not a road rage kind of person. When I get huffy it usually sounds like "oooh you mean blue car!" But the above list are things I run across frequently. My regular honk just doesn't seem to get my point across sufficiently. I'd like some pre-recorded honks please! I'm pretty sure the world would be a happier place.

I finally got around to getting my flu shot today. I know a lot of people don't get them but I personally think that's a bit irresponsible. Of course, I've waited until every office is out of the vaccine so I had to resort to going to the County Health Department. That was a first for me. I had visions of terribly long lines of unhealthy people, but you know what they say about assuming something in life. Yeah, I was the only person there. It was me and four or five nurses who had nothing else to do but stand around gossiping. It was a depressing building but must be a sweet job just standing there gabbing all day. They told me all about some woman in California who just had octupulets (I guess that's what it's called- eight babies).

Anyway, so I go into the room with a nurse and another woman- I think she was either another nurse or an admin person who had nothing else to do. I sit down and lift my sleeve to prepare for my shot. I'm looking away to avoid seeing the needle. If I don't see it, I'm fine. But gosh the nurse is dawdling! Re-reading my paperwork over and over. It seriously only had like five questions on it. But she asks me again if I am allergic to eggs or latex. No I tell her. Are you pregnant? No. Are you sure there is no chance you are pregnant? No, I'm not pregnant. She looks at my paper again (where I checked the box NO that I am not preggers) and looks up to ask me a third and fourth time if I might be preggo. After the last time I sarcastically said, "only if it's immaculate conception!" She looks at me, in all seriousness, and replied that it happened once. To which I replied, "yeah 2000 years ago."

Now I was not in the most beautiful of outfits (jeans and sweater) and I have gained a LOT of weight over the last few years. But I feel certain that I do not look pregnant. Or slutty. Chubby, maybe. Pregnant though, notsomuch. I love though that she felt I looked pregnant, slutty and religious all at the same time. That's a difficult trifecta to pull off, but apparently I do it well. Who knew?!





To answer your question.... This is the dress I picked up at White/Black on Saturday. It was super on sale and hides my pregnancy belly well....I hope! I like stuff that I can dress up or down depending on the accessories and shoes. I think it will be cute with Bonannos in six months after we thaw out up here.

I don't even know where to start in regards to the OC Housewives. I actually missed the first 15 minutes but it seems that Gretchen did not cheat on her fiance....am I correct? I hope so. I was so tired but it was worth staying awake to see Lynne and her cuff bracelets. I was laughing so hard when she went on and on about working so hard. Listen, I make things too so I get the creative and physical aspect. But it was just hilarious to hear her going on and on and on about working super hard as they show her gluing a bobble to the top of a bracelet.

What is wrong with the picture when cute Gretchen feels less-than simply because she doesn't have fake breasts? If that is the OC standard of beauty, add that city to the list of places I will never live. Though, isn't LC from The Hills from OC too? She doesn't seem to be all about fakey-mc-fakey. Then again I only watch one Hills episode last season so maybe she is and I don't realize it.

How is an hour in a car with friends a waste of time Vicky? Unless it was some serious emergency that involved a world leader or a patient's life, I would never again invite a friend to hang out with me if she whipped out a computer claiming that talking to me for an hour was a waste of time. I'll give you a waste of time! I actually don't know what that means but it sounds all huffy and serious. :)

That lunch conversation was so typical. I actually understood both sides of the discussion. Didn't like how either side presented itself but by now I expect as much. But I got it. What amazed me was that both Vicky and Jeana felt that they were more deserving of an opinion than Lynne. Self-centered much?!

Why-oh-why do I watch this show? I hope Laurie comes back. I wonder if her daughter's business got off the ground. Or if she ever took a honeymoon. Come back Laurie!

What do you do when someone wants to be FB "friends" but you don't recognize them? I've been ignoring the requests but feel bad. I have friends in common with both people but I swear to you I do not know them. There was a girl with my same first name I believe who went to another school. I'm wondering if they perhaps think I am that other girl? Should I just be "friends" with them? It's not like I do much on FB anyway. Or continue to ignore them? What do you do??

Does anyone know where I can find a good quality, solid-colored sweat shirt? I've bought from Target and Walmart and don't like any of them. Arms too short or body too short or they get pilly after only one wash. But I have a college sweatshirt and it's still soft and smooth after hundreds of washes. That's what I am looking for. So if you know where I can find this surprisingly difficult to find item, I will be truly grateful!!

I was just in Target for a few things (Really, I really truly did come out of there with only a few things purchased. Miracle of all miracles!) and buzzed past the clothing section. I don't care how cute it is, I am in no mood to shop for clothing this time of year. First of all, it is bleeping cold outside. And Georgia girls, I don't want to hear how it's 30 and 40 down there. The weather man just announced that next week we are getting a warm front and it might reach the low 30's. That's our "warm front" mind you. Anyhoo.... I am not in the mood to take off my 4000 layers of puffiness to try on anything. I live my life with a single goal in mind, to never wear a bathing suit. So you can guess how amused I am to see them staring me in the face in bleeping January. Hello, I just said our warm front will reach all of 30. I'm thinking that's still not quite bathing suit weather.

OK so then my eye spied some fabulous colors. Pink and green of course. Adorable coats in the most fabulously rich colors. And lined in a cute polka dot print. My question is, who exactly are they marketing these coats towards? No one that lives in New England for sure!! They are beautiful and cute and I own several similar coats. But there is all of two weeks in the fall and two in the spring (er....early summer?) when this light coat might be appropriate. Because kids, it's ...say it with me.....bleeping cold up here!






So as much as I love the colors and styles, Target can take these coats and bathing suits back down to states where the sun does actually shine. Up here, we will be wearing puffy and fuzzy everything until at least early May. Or June. One never knows around these parts.

I have more things to share but wanted to quickly thank everyone for your sweet comments yesterday regarding my new(er) JL chapter. Last night went much much better than anything I have previously attended. I felt a lot more comfortable and chatted with women in my same age group and state of life the whole time. A great improvement over past experiences! I still do not have a placement, which I find super annoying. But I signed up for a few DIAD things so hopefully I will find some familiar faces to befriend that way until someone gives me a committee.

Oh but let me tell you this totally embarrassing thing that happened too. So I walked in right on time- even though I tried to be a few minutes late. The first 30 mins were social and when I don't know a soul, I don't enjoy being the first one to show up just so that I can awkwardly stand around staring at my cup of Diet Coke. Lucky for me there were a few women there ahead of me. I saw a sign in sheet and then a big box of typed up name tags. I saw my name (misspelled as usual!) and pinned it on and walked over to a group of gals to introduce myself. All was going quite well until it was time for the meeting to start. I sat down next to a girl who has been in the league for 15 years but who was a lot of fun to chitty chat. Now I pinned the name tag to my scarf because I was too cold at first to take it off. I looked down at my scarf/name tag only to realize that I was not wearing MY name tag. Totally wearing someone else's name tag. Turns out they didn't misspell my name as it was totally NOT MY NAME! For 30 minutes I chatted it up and introduced myself to every woman who walked near me. For 30 minutes they all must have thought, good golly who the heck is this crazy lady pretending to be someone else?! I was (and still am) so embarrassed. But there was nothing I could do at that point as we had a full agenda. Let's hope next month I avoid impersonating people I don't even know!!

Gosh it's been long since I last posted. For no particular reason other than I have been surprisingly busy lately. I spent my Sunday morning digging my way out of my house and to my car. Once I was finally able to get in my car, I left for an all day marathon long Executive Council meeting. We've never done that before- had an extra super long meeting. But it was so well worth it! We were able to really get together as a whole group to make some changes and plans for the next semester/year. Not everything went off perfectly but overall I left feeling positive. And exhausted! For whatever reason I didn't really sleep more than a few hours the night before. So when I got home, Sadie got a walk and I went to grab dinner from Panera (I picked two soups from the "You Pick Two" menue which only proved to upset the entire staff because I guess the soup is more expensive or something. But I asked and the girl taking my order said yes. It's not like I was trying to pull one over on them. But let me tell you, they were like yelling across the restaurant to each other about how I shouldn't be able to get two stinkin' cups of soup, etc! Which made me feel terrible but hello....I asked and they said yes!!) and was asleep by 8PM.

Tonight I have my first Junior League meeting in forever. I joined in DC and then transferred up here and it just didn't click with me. I know it's technically the same organization but trust me when I tell you that it is only the same in title. Like two different worlds. So for a variety of reason, I sort of dropped out. It was unintentional but it happened nonetheless. But I miss it. And decided to give it a second go in the fall. But it took them from September until now to get me on the roster. I also still do not have a placement. Tonight is a big general membership meeting. Which does not even exist in DC- OMG they would need a small arena to host a group that large. I am going to do my very best to make a new friend. Just one- baby steps. But seeing as how I don't have any in this league, I think one is a fairly realistic goal. And once I make said new friend, I plan to get the inside scoop on how to finally get myself at least one placement. Wish me luck!!

I don't think my first attempt at hosting a swap went very well. I had a ball with my swap partner but I am not sure anyone else did. And I feel crazy guilty about that!! In the last 24 hours, two swappers have informed me that they sent a package but never received one. Y'all, I have been in those shoes several times and it really really stinks!! It is so disappointing to be told that the present will be sent soon and then soon never ever comes. Your partners worked so hard on putting together packages that they knew would put a smile on your face during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. Please, please, please put your package together this week and send it out by Friday at the latest. And for sanity's sake, email your swap partner (or me at the very least) and tell her that it really is going to arrive soon. She will very much appreciate hearing from you!! Several swappers were first time swap participants and I don't want this sour experience to turn them off forever from swapping. This was supposed to be fun, not a hassle. I'm so sorry everyone that this was not the success I had once hoped it would be. Perhaps the organization is best left up to others in the future.

For those not totally turned off from swapping, Hopsy is hosting a PINK swap. Leave your email in her comment box to sign up!

I'm rather happy it's a whole new year today. Last year was fine I guess but nothing super fab by any means. I have big hopes and plans that 2009 will bring some positive changes my way. Only time will tell I suppose....

Seeing as how 8 inches of snow landed on my doorstep yesterday morning, I was pretty thrilled that I had big plans to do a whole lot of nothing on New Year's Eve. I did brave the only mildly plowed roads to go to the grocery store so that I could make this soup. I actually doubled the liquid amounts and used fat free half and half instead of cream. It made a TON (hello, doubling the liquid!) and was super-de-duper delish! I also made a fabulous sandwich using multi grain artisan bread, cream cheese, mustard, brie, Parmesan cheese, blueberry preserves, and pear slices. I sprayed a pan with EVOO spray, placed the sandwiches on top and then spritzed the top with EVOO spray. Stuck that in the oven while I was trying not to spill soup all over my kitchen while pureeing it in the blender. The low fat soup is more than made up for with the three cheese and totally not low fat sandwich. OMG it was hands down the best stay cozy inside while it's in the teens outside dinner. With two more storms heading my way, I'm sure I will be grateful for making an enormous batch of that yummy soup!

Cheers to a fabulous 2009 that is filled with smiles, laughter, celebrations, and early Spring and lots of pink and green goodness!!